Dublin’s new transport system won’t be powered by petrol or diesel or even electricity. It will be powered by bullsh*t.

It’s time to celebrate. We have a new transport plan for Dublin.

I can’t quite remember who launched it.

Was it the Department of Transport itself?

Or was it Transport Infrastructure Ireland?
Or the National Transport Authority?
Or Transport for Ireland?
Or Motorway Operation Services?
Or Bus Éireann?
Or Dublin Bus?
Or Iarnrod Éireann?
Or Bus Connects?

Anyway, someone launched it.

Well, when I say launched, someone told us that it’s likely to be launched in twenty year’s time. Or is it thirty?

Are you familiar with that great song The Dublin Saunter?

It was written seventy or eighty years ago by Leo Maguire especially for Noel Purcell who made it a standard, a Dublin anthem.

Now, at the time, CIE (I didn’t mention them above because I’m not sure if they’re still around though a Google search assures me they are) had a promotion. It you bought a rail ticket to anywhere in Ireland, your return ticket was complimenatry.

I mention this to give context to a line in a parody of the Dublin Saunter written by my brother Dee.

And here it is:

Dublin can be heaven

On subway route eleven

Which goes under, Stephen’s Green

No need to worry

No need to hurray

You’re a part of the underground scene

Grafton Street’s a wonderland

There’s magic in the air

If you’re goin’ any further

Then you haven’t got a prayer

The comin’ back is free

But they will never get you there

Because the driver’s been in Sinnotts half the morning.

Nice one.

And it was written in 1968. Yes indeed, 1968 when the bullshitters first started talking about an underground railway for Dublin.

And they’re still talking about it but doing nothing.

Imagine one of the most densely populated parts of the city, the south west from say from Portobello/Ranelagh to Rathfarnham, has no rail link to the city and likely never will have.

(There was an “examination” of a proposal to run a LUAS line from the city through Harold’s Cross, Terenure and on to Rathfarnham a few years ago. But among the reasons it was rejected was because “the arch at Christ Church is too low.” I kid you not.)

I asked someone I knew in the Rail Procurement Agency if the conclusion of the report was written before the report itself and he just smiled.

So we’re off again.

A comprehensive report into absolutely nothing, promising absolutely nothing and costing a small fortune.

You’d be tempted to tell the whole lot of them to “get on your bike.”

But they’re probably all motorists…