The Minister for Transport has sharply rebuked his Minister of State for recent references to transport initiatives.
Mr Cullen said that Mr Ivor Callely's commitment "sometimes overruns with enthusiasm", adding: "Some of his recent pronouncements to the Fourth Estate are just guesswork and are not based on any fact."
Mr Cullen added: "I am sure he will join with me in supporting our proposals enthusiastically when they are made public."
The Minister was replying to the Fine Gael spokeswoman on transport, Ms Olivia Mitchell, who challenged the Minister on the Government's commitment to provide a metro service in the northside of Dublin.
"The former minister with responsibility for public transport, Senator O'Rourke, promised us a metro seven years ago," Ms Mitchell added. "She abandoned a Luas line for the northside in favour of an all-singing, all-dancing metro, saying we would all be riding on it within seven years." What had happened in the last couple of weeks, said Ms Mitchell, was that the Minister's trusty lieutenant was able to announce on Monday that the metro was going to go ahead.
Mr Cullen said he wanted to get the best solution for north Dublin, marrying all the different proposals together.
"We do not want to cherry-pick the sexy metro as a solution to everything," he added. "There are issues relating to interconnectivity with Dublin, for the DART and the lines from Maynooth, Kildare, Drogheda and so on."
Asked by the Labour transport spokeswoman, Ms Róisín Shortall, if the metro was "dead". Mr Cullen replied: "I'm saying no such thing until I go to Government early in March to address the Cabinet sub-committee. I will bring proposals to Government which will be considered, and, subsequently, made public."
Later, at Opposition leaders' questions, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, noted that Mr Callely, at a Fianna Fáil meeting, "seems to have got a rush of Valentine's blood to the head and announced a package of 16 billion euros over 10 years for transport".
He added that the package had included a metro line from Dublin city centre to the airport, running underground to Dublin's northside, a second terminal at the airport, an investment in road construction of over 1 billion euro annually, the reopening of rail services to County Meath at a cost of 156 million euro, a new rail station at Spencer Dock, and an underground rail interconnector linking Heuston and Connolly railway stations at a cost of 1 billion euro.
"What struck was that at the end of Deputy Callely's contribution, as reported in the newspapers, he said he did not want to pre-empt any decision of the Minister in having this matter brought before Cabinet," Mr Kenny added.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said that Mr Cullen had dealt with transport matters earlier.
"The Government is in the final stages of preparing the 10 year plan which was agreed in the Budget. We said we would extend the envelope to a 10 year programme and would examine transport projects in all areas," Mr Ahern added.
"That brings into play what the Minister of State, Deputy Callely, was referring to: all the current proposals that have been presented in one form or another."
