Traffic congestion in Dublin costs businesses €3 billion a year, making a metro an urgent requirement, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.
Representatives of Dublin Chamber of Commerce said surveys had shown that congestion was the biggest impediment to business growth.
They told members of the Joint Committee on Transport that a single transportation authority was needed for the city, as had been promised in the Programme for Government.
Mr Clive Brownlee, the chamber president, said a "multiplicity of agencies" was responsible for traffic management in the city, with different agendas and priorities.
A greater Dublin area authority had been promised by the Government, and "all we are saying is may we have it and may we have it now".
The capital, he said, needed a number of metro lines, but the most urgent of them was a link from Dublin Airport to the city centre.
Asked by committee members to explain the €3 billion estimate of traffic congestion cost, the chamber delegation said it was based on an EU White Paper on transport costs, published last year.
Mr Declan Martin, the chamber's director of policy, said such figures were not definitive.
Another estimate had put the cost at €8 billion. The EU White Paper, however, had provided a breakdown of all costs involved.
The chamber is to provide a detailed breakdown to the committee.
