The M4 bus corridor project cannot start because legislation to allow the hard shoulder to be used as a bus lane has yet to be completed, the Dáil has heard.
Labour TD Mark Wall said the construction phase of the project had already been completed.
“Only after the construction was done did the Government realise ‘now we need that legislation to allow buses to be used’,” he said.
The project had been under way for seven years and the construction was completed months ago and “could have made a difference” in tackling traffic congestion, Mr Wall said.
READ MORE
He had been due to introduce his party’s motion on flexible working and commuter delays, but after leaving home in Co Kildare at 6.30am he only arrived at Leinster House at 10.05am because of congestion on the M50.
He urged the Government to “lead on the right to flexible work”. Many of the people contacting the party about working from home “are working for the State”.
In recent weeks “they have been told by various and many State departments that they must come back into work again – from two days to three days, from three days to four days”.
This was after working from home for a long time, he said, also saying how during the Covid pandemic “productivity went up, and everybody had a quality of life that so many of the workers in this country deserve”.
Labour’s motion urges the Government to recognise the right for employees to flexible work and to “show leadership by talking to the various secretary generals and allow those workers to work from home”.
The Government needed to recognise that this was an emergency, Mr Wall said.
“This is chaos at the moment. The quality of life of individuals is being affected. Their productivity is being affected,” he said.
He also said Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) told him there were 2,300 traffic incidents on the M50 in the last three years, but “TII officials hold their hands up and say, there’s nothing we can do about it”.
Mr Wall’s Labour Party colleague Ciarán Ahern said “we’re witnessing a rollback on one of the few genuinely positive legacies of the Covid pandemic” when people had to work from home.
“The absence of a real meaningful right to flexible and remote work is contributing significantly to congestion across Dublin and the wider greater Dublin area,” he said.
Dublin was the third most-congested city in Europe and the 11th most congested globally, he said.
Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould said Cork was the 38th most congested city in the world. “Worse than London. How can Cork be more congested than London?” he said.
Minister of State Jerry Buttimer, speaking for Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, said his department supported the role that remote working could play in taking pressure off the transport network.
“This is reflected in recommendations to be included in a new transport strategy called Moving Together, which is expected to go to Government shortly,” he said.
“The strategy reflects the Government’s commitment to further expanding opportunities for flexible or remote working and encouraging greater use of remote working hubs, having regard to the potential of reducing calamitous travel, particularly for commuting journeys.”
Sinn Féin TD Johnny Guirke said thousands of people were being forced back into long commutes even though their work could be done remotely.
“This is a political choice in many cases. Government is responding to corporate pressure instead of listening to workers and families. Supporting remote working which would immediately reduce congestion” and cut emissions and give people back hours of their lives every week, he said.
But Fine Gael TD Emer Currie said Finland was the only country she knew of where people had a right to remote or flexible working.
“And even in Finland it’s only for office workers,” she said, yet Ireland had higher figures for remote working than many other European countries.
