The Chump Coalition

News that the PDs have decided to move Dublin Port to Bremore, near Balbriggan, will possibly come as a shock to their Fianna Fail partners in Government.

The shock for the rest of us is even greater. Listening to them, you'd imagine that the PDs have been in opposition for the past decade. Instead, they've been jointly responsible for several years of serious traffic disruption on the northside and the spending of over €1bn in digging the Port Tunnel.

Isn't it a pity they didn't think of Bremore a bit earlier, there's no reference to it in the highlights of the Coalition Government's Transport 21 strategy published in November 2005. This mirrors the mis-match between the McCreevy/Parlon Decentralisation Programme and the National Spatial Strategy. Probably a result of planning on the back of an envelope.

If there was joined up thinking in Government, and agreement on the strategy, Bremore would be at a more advanced stage of development, and we'd have been saved the cost and disruption associated with the port tunnel.

Another winner from the Chump Coalition.