There is to be a "funeral" tomorrow to mark what its undertakers see as the "slow death" of the Dublin Transportation Initiative, which was supposed to sort out traffic chaos in the city.
Organised by the Dublin Cycling Campaign, it began at 1 p.m. yesterday in customary fashion with a "removal of the remains" from the former Harcourt Street railway station - closed down, along with its suburban line to Bray, in 1959.
Four grim-looking men in top hats and tails, their faces whitened by theatre paint, stood with the DTI's veneered fibreboard coffin outside the POD night-club, in the one-time station's vaults, with an assortment of black crosses and a pair of second-hand wreaths.
Their intention was to carry the coffin in slow procession to St Stephen's Green, accompanied by two female "mourners" carrying placards addressed to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke. They read: "Why lose Luas, Mary?" and "Luas talk costs lives."
But Harcourt Street, where the Luas light rail line serving Dundrum was intended to run, was so jammed with traffic that the bizarre funeral procession had to be abandoned after just 50 yards - apparently because Hollywood star Arnold Swartzenegger was in town.
Mr Eamonn Ryan, chairman of the Dublin Cycling Campaign, delivered a sombre speech saying that the DTI was "suffering death by a thousand cuts - the biggest one being the threat to abandon Luas" or delay it beyond the deadline for drawing down EU funding.
In the presence of Cllr Ciaran Cuffe, the Green Party's transport spokesman, who was also kitted out in a "mourning suit", Mr Ryan said the DTI was "the right plan for Dublin", but a lack of political will to implement the strategy was "killing it slowly but surely".
He called on Ms O'Rourke to "breathe life back into it" by allowing the public inquiry into the £220 million project to proceed. More action was also needed to implement the DTI's recommendations for "quality bus corridors" and cycleways, on which progress had been too slow.
Bored bus passengers, marooned in the sea of cars, looked somewhat bemused by the event, as did office workers going out for their lunch break. Perhaps they thought it was something to do with the Dublin Theatre Festival. A truck driver asked: "What is Luas?".
Those who organised the brief procession could not be accused of holding up the traffic; it was already at an almost complete standstill. In any case, the event was abandoned after just five minutes, with the coffin popped into a blue transit van for tomorrow's funeral.
The arrangements are as follows: The funeral will depart from the Central Bank at noon, calling at the offices of the Department of Public Enterprise and Dublin Chamber of Commerce before the DTI is given a "sea burial" in the River Liffey, beyond the Custom House.
