Luas in Terenure - why not put it in a tunnel.

I read the report - oh my god (OMG) what a dogs dinner. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. The report divides the Christchurch to Dundrum line into sections at the end of each section there is paragraph entitled Solution, makes an attempt to describe how little difficulties will be overcome in the construction. There are 6 compulsory purchase order (CPO) solutions involving about 70 houses and business directly. Anybody who has been on the receiving end of a CPO knows all about Irish injustice. This is how it works - first a report is issued - the word is out low and behold no one wants to buy or rent your property ( so all the people East of a line from Christchurch to Rathfarnham are stuck) five or six years later the work on the line begins, this work will take up to 4 years you may be lucky and get your CPO in a year or two or you might have to wait three or four years. It is very hard to take an interest in a property if you know it is coming down in a few years of course there is compensation this is very small.

This Luas report is more a Luasish report, cars will be sharing the track in parts, sort of like the old tram system which was ripped up by that philistine Todd Andrews. The Luasish will now have the pleasure of sharing the traffic jams with the cars and the taxis.

Now getting back to the solutions, more specifically the traffic solutions during construction and after construction. Oh those underpaid corpo clerks from Cablas are going have some fun sticking it into the southsiders. This fun has already started "Jaysus lads lets run the feckin Luas up the bleedin gardens in Brighton Road". This will progress to "lets hem all them posh mustards Eaton Square and Rathdown did dat and de other, dose mercs will be feckin useless in a one way on left turn no right turn no reverse traffic treatment".

I remember a representative from Harcourt Street traders association nearly in tears on the TV when the street was closed for over a year laying down a couple of hundred metres of track.
Lots of businesses went under where the Luas went on the road.

I don't buy the "we can't afford to tunnel" argument, they can afford it in Spain China and India (Calcutta), it is not because of cheap labour, tunnelling companies use the same people and equipment all over the world. Ireland is one of the richest countries on the planet. I have looked at tunnelling prices in other countries we can afford it. In fact short term and long term we can't afford not to go underground.