Ross denies disowning bus routes upheaval

TRANSPORT Minister Shane Ross has denied he told his local residents association he had nothing to do with a controversial BusConnects plan.

But he said he ‘does not micromanage’ and that if people had a problem with routes it’s up to them to ‘make a submission’.

The plan is a radical redesign of the Dublin Bus network that is due to take effect in 2020, and will have a particular impact on the No.14 route in Mr Ross’s Dublin Rathdown constituency. Locals have voiced concerns over plans to cut the current routes and the requirement that the size of some front gardens may be reduced as a result.

One person at Wednesday’s AGM of the Nutgrove Loreto Community Association claimed that when Mr Ross saw a proposed map for the BusConnects plan, he told attendees: ‘Don’t mind this map.’

Mr Ross is alleged to have indicated he would be making his own submission to the ongoing public consultation on the plan and objecting to some aspects of it.

Local councillor Shay Brennan told RTÉ’s Seán O’Rourke yesterday: ‘It was astonishing. Such remarks coming from a minister who, whether he likes it or not, clearly is in charge of transport policy. He said he wouldn’t be taking questions about BusConnects and that it didn’t come under his remit but that he’d be making a public submission.’

Local Green Party TD, Catherine Martin, told RTÉ the minister ‘quite extraordinarily’ commenced his address by making an effort to ‘distance himself immediately from his own area of responsibility, from the NTA and from the BusConnects’.

Ms Martin said that with the minister, it was a ‘case of “before you mention the BusConnects, I just want to let you know”’ in reference to him discussing the issue at the meeting.

Mr Ross was yesterday forced to insist he is ‘fully behind’ the controversial project, and he rejected accusations he had tried to disown his own ministerial brief. ‘I wanted to make it clear that, yes, I make Government policy, but don’t ask me for details. I don’t micro manage.

‘If you have a problem in your particular area, it’s up to you to make a submission, but don’t come to me to change a route. That’s not my job, that map was not drawn up by me,’ he told Seán O’Rourke.

He said Ms Martin’s and Mr Brennan’s ‘recollection of this is broadly true, but maybe not quite as in accordance with mine’.

The minister said: ‘When I got up to speak at the meeting, in front of me – just beside me – was an enormous map of the BusConnects plan on the table there. Obviously a matter for discussion and [had] been a discussion which I had been going on with all day with residents of that area and others. And I said, “look, I am going to address this issue because I know it is the thorny issue”, that’s what happens at residents associations meetings… what I wanted to make absolutely clear is this; yes, I do make Government policy on Bus Connects, ... But don’t ask me questions about the details of this map in front of me, because I don’t micro manage the issues.’

Minister Ross denied the charge from Catherine Martin that he was ‘disowning his brief’, insisting that he had ‘championed this project’.

‘Don’t ask me questions about it’