The outspoken chief executive of CIE, Mr Michael McDonnell, recently delivered a broadside to TDs and senators on the funding of public transport. He confessed CIE had not been able to provide the quality of service it aspires to, and its customers require, "because we have not been given the resources to do so". That, in a nutshell, captures the essence of the problem which has faced public transport here for decades. It simply is not "valued" both in the sense of that word when used by Mary Robinson when she was President, and also in pounds and pence.
"A good public transport system costs money and the inescapable fact is that we in Ireland have not provided the necessary amount of money for two decades to give public transport customers the quality of service which is the norm not only in other European countries, but even in free enterprise economies such as the US," Mr McDonnell said.
Addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport recently, he recited "a few key facts" about the deplorable state of public transport when he took over as group chief executive of CIE in 1995.
In Iarnrod Eireann, the average age of locomotives was 29 years, the average age of carriages was 20 years and more than half of the track on its passenger network was over 50 years old. And in Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus, the average age of scheduled service buses was over nine years, with school buses almost pensionable at 21.
This is virtually a Third World picture, certainly not one that ought to be painted of an OECD memberstate which - on the basis of income per capita - is now one of the richest countries in the world. Successive governments, barring one or two grand gestures, have ignored public transport.
Public transport is seen as a residual service for people who are too poor to have their own cars. Mr McDonnell conceded that our demographics - with Dublin so disproportionately large compared to anywhere else in the State - "are such that it is impossible to run a financially viable, proper rail transport system here". Rail is a high density mode of transport and Ireland simply hasn't got the density to generate the revenue.
Although CIE has shown on the Dublin-Cork and Dublin-Belfast routes it is "capable of providing a quality rail service comparable with the best internationally, if we are given the resources to do so", the fact is even these busy routes are only profitable on the peak morning and evening services.
But because the railways are justified for wider social reasons, they will benefit from a total investment of £393 million over the five years to 1999, much of it coming from the EU. The overall sum covers track renewal works (£151 million), new locomotives and carriages, DART extensions, new and refurbished stations and better signalling.
With passenger numbers at record levels, this investment is more than justified. It has helped to bring down the average age of locomotives by six years and carriages by four. However, much of the surviving rail network is served by old jointed track and equally-antiquated signalling, which has in some cases long since passed its "use by" date.
CIE has calculated the total investment needed to bring mainline rail services up to the standard of the Dublin-Cork and Dublin-Belfast routes would amount to £650 million over the next eight years. And Mr McDonnell appealed to TDs and senators to help CIE secure this level of funding, both from Exchequer and EU sources.
While the sum involved looks staggering at first sight, it's just marginally more than the current estimate of £646.3 million for roads in the Dublin area alone. And whatever reservations ministers might have about investing heavily in poorly-patronised mainline routes, there can be no such qualms about public transport needs in the capital itself.
Yet, as Mr McDonnell pointed out, there has been no increase in the capacity of the DART since it was first introduced in 1984, despite a 75 per cent increase in passenger numbers over the past 14 years. Ten extra carriages have been ordered for delivery next year, but even this small advance might not have happened if EU aid hadn't been available.
"We could do with double that amount," Mr McDonnell declared. And with more and more people in the greater Dublin area commuting longer distances, he also made a case for further investment to upgrade the western and northern suburban lines as well as for at least 100 extra buses so that Dublin Bus can cope with peak passenger demand.
Mr Owen Keegan, Dublin Corporation's director of traffic, strongly agrees. His concern is that the bus company - now required, uniquely in Europe, to operate without any State subvention - may not have the resources to provide adequate levels of service on the network of quality bus corridors (QBCs) currently being introduced. "The kind of expenditure that's required to deliver the QBCs, the extra bus capacity, the environmental traffic cells in the city centre and the traffic signalling enhancement that we want to do is actually very small in the overall context, and I would be very surprised if there wasn't an increasingly receptive audience for such low-cost measures."
What's more, as he says, "we can easily afford them". If the money is not found for public transport in particular, car commuters will have reason to complain more loudly about other measures, including the elimination of all free on-street parking spaces in the inner city and the implementation of wheel-clamping for illegal parking.
It was Mr Keegan who coined the memorable dictum that commuting by car is a "sunset industry". This ties in with the latest transport thinking in the UK, that the growth in car use must be slowed down and even reduced and that the long-term decline in public transport must be reversed by changing relative prices and reallocating road space.
This essential message will be spelled out by Britain's deputy prime minister, Mr John Prescott, in a White Paper on Transport next month. However, despite the Dublin Transportation Initiative (DTI) strategy, which was also aimed at achieving balance, it was fear of the car lobby that lay behind the Government's recent decision on Luas.
The city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, believes it will be a "bigger and better project" as a result of the decision to extend it to Ballymun, Cabinteely, Docklands, Finglas, Connolly Station and the airport. He also insists the DTI strategy is "still intact and being implemented" even though some of its major elements are behind schedule.
Though Dublin Corporation favoured running Luas on-street through the city centre, Mr Fitzgerald is glad that a firm decision has been made - even if it does involve some delay due the proposed tunnel between Broadstone and St Stephen's Green. The really important thing for him is that we should "get on with it".
Mr McDonnell, in his statement to the Oireachtas committee, made it clear CIE is merely an agent for the project and would implement whatever the Government wants "provided we are given the resources to do so". And not just for Luas. Right across the board, but particularly in Dublin, public transport deserves priority.