Working in recruitment, I know that one of the major stumbling blocks to finding a suitable candidate for a job is their proximity to the role. Find me someone who is willing to commute from Skerries to Sandyford and I will find you someone with an overzealous penchant for drive time radio!! Candidates rightly don’t want to have to undertake a 2 or 3 hour round trip to get to work each day, not to mention shell out the funds necessary to do so. Such punishing commutes, turn people off applying for jobs which can benefit their lives, thus putting them at a disadvantage as well as hindering companies seeking the right people to help their business succeed.

A number of months ago the last government unveiled a multibillion euro capital expenditure programme for transport due to run over the next 5 years. Most of it (Metro North, Extension of the DART) had been flagged well in advance of the announcement and indeed were projects shelved at the start of the recession. More recently the prospect of moving ahead with the Dart underground project was mooted. While the plans are welcome, it only begins to meet the level of investment needed in public transport in Dublin and around the country and it all seems to lack urgency.

International companies locating in Ireland often cite our educated population as one of the main motivating factors for setting up here, but that advantage is null and void if these talented people can’t or won’t travel to join the business. This is a massive issue when we consider the possibility of companies relocating from post Brexit Britain. Businesses want to move to places where they can attract employees, and where their staff have a decent standard of living. A city and country which is found wanting in terms of connectivity risks being left behind. This is the very real risk we face today. Rather than invest in infrastructure when times were tough, we decided there wasn’t any money to break ground on these projects. Now our chickens are coming home to roost as boardrooms across the world work out their options for moving from Britain.

We may never have a perfect transport system, but as a society we have neglected the economic and social returns that emanate from having top class infrastructure. No one in Dublin should have to commute more than an hour or so to work in any other part of the city or county and companies should have a reasonable expectation that when they take the risk of setting up a business that access to the people they need is not stymied by poor transport connectivity – If they don’t they will look elsewhere.

Investment in public transport is not a luxury, but a necessity for Ireland and is furthermore a hugely productive investment which vastly improves quality of life for commuters, shoppers and citizens in general. We should make sure that in future we don’t score an F and do what we can to get people from a to b with an efficient, reliable and green transport system.

Cormac