Sir, - If The Irish Times of April 3rd had consisted of 50 blank pages, with only two sentences printed, you would have done a great service to those of your Dublin readers doomed to suffer the city's twice-daily traffic gridlock. The reported remarks of Mr Loughrey, secretary-general of the Department of Public Enterprise, leaped from the page with unpolitical clarity, advising us that: (a) Dublin's transport system is underfunded compared with any other capital city in the world; and (b) that we have EU funding only for the current Luas project plan.
I think that someone in a Government awash with millions of unexpected tax revenue should explain (a) to the long-suffering traveller. As for (b), Mary O'Rourke might clarify her many reassurances that somehow she is striving for the best end result for Luas by putting the whole thing at risk.
Losing that funding is one way of ensuring that her name will never be forgotten by the stranded Dublin commuter. - Yours, etc.,
Mike Purcell,
Meadow Grove, Dundrum, Dublin 16.