Right Winger
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Hi RW
Deal with the arguments in his article, rather than attacking the author.
Brendan
Ok. First of all, though, I'm not simply attacking the guy ad hominem. Along with @Shirazman and @NoRegretsCoyote, I actually agree with a lot of what he says on public spending in general. But I think he (and with respect, your good self) gets it wrong on metrolink.
So, to Colm McCarthy's article.
A) It's not just about the airport. The article seems to assume it is simply about shaving a few minutes off the airport - city centre journey. If that were actually the case, then yeah, we could make do without a metro. But it's so much than that and it's the extension to Swords and the integration with a larger rapid transit system that really adds value.
B) Yes, we have a track record of getting lousy value for our public capital spend. The most expensive children's hospital in the world is a salutary example. Yes, we will probably pay through the nose for a metro. Yes, we will be taken for soft touch mugs by avaricious contractors and the couldn't-care-less public servants who are supposed to oversee them. Yes, there is a massive bureaucratic jungle to hack through and heaven help us if the conservationists find something interesting along the route. (And they will - they always do.) But what are we supposed to do? Never build public infrastructure ever again? Surely not. It's farcical to advocate against a big project because we haven't been good at doing big projects in the past. We still need to do them.
We need to (A) build it and (B) do it cost-effectively. The former is a given - McCarthy, and the rest of us, should apply ourselves to the latter.