Because our public transport system is so wonderful

I do not know of any other European capital city without an underground railway. Most readers of this blog will have travelled on the London underground at some point. The Paris métro makes it possible to hop around that great city with ease. Berlin has one, which runs day and night. Bucharest has one. Warsaw also has one, the building of which began in the 1990's. And, indeed, other non-capital cities in Europe have underground railways too. When I lived in Bavaria I was often in Nuremburg. This unimportant provincial city, which has less than half the population of Dublin, has a state-of-the-art U-Bahn.

But Dublin? Seat of the Celtic Tiger? Capital of the country which was for years described as "the envy of Europe"? That city which boasts narrow one-way streets, large numbers of tourists and a rainy climate - a city, in other words, in which good and efficient public transport would be highly desirable? Not on your life. An underground, you see, requires foresight, planning and the ability to sacrifce now in order to reap the benefit later - all qualities which our politicians lack. The men and women whom the Celtic Tiger values are not the sort of people to worry their heads about public transport.

But in spite of this indifference, I was a bit taken aback when I saw that the government had chosen to axe 120 buses and 290 jobs in Dublin. That this was done by a government in which the Green Party is a coalition partner is even more shocking. How, in the government's opinion, are people to get around instead? If the two Luas lines were connected that would solve alot of problems, but of course they aren't, which complicates life for people like me who trudge accross town regularly.

Yes, of course, we knew the cuts were coming and we were warned they would be painful. But I wonder if the government is really saving money in the right areas. This morning I was in a bathroom in a university and, while drying my hands, was forced to stare at one of these idiotic posters, whose would-be hipness can't disguise their finger-wagging, nanny-state undertone. Are these Gutmenschen taking any cuts? It's about time they did.

The Christian Solidarity Party is opposed to cuts in areas that will badly effect the common good, and we are also in favour of an increased role for public transport in this country, particularly rail transport. Party President Paul O'Loughlin, who ran in Dublin North Central at the last election, has been very vocal on this topic. You'll be reading more about him in the upcoming months. Stay tooned.