The Government should introduce a congestion charge in Dublin because the high volume of traffic during rush hour is “not fair” on the working class people who live in the inner city. 

As the population grows and the housing crisis forces people to commute ever greater distances, the volume of traffic on roads in the capital has surged. 

It means many are trapped in gridlock every morning and Eoin O’Malley, Associate Professor in Political Science, said only congestion charge will provide any relief in the short-term. 

 “We don't have an underground system and we're not going to have an underground system for a while,” he explained on Newstalk Breakfast. 

“So, everything's going to have to go above ground; we've got a huge volume of cars and we have to, for things like Bus Connects to make that system work, we need to reduce the volume of cars.

“We can't knock down buildings to create wider streets; so, we have to deal with the streets we have. 

“And so reducing the volume of cars is the only way to do it, the only way to reduce the volume of cars is to make people pay for it.”

Traffic in Firhouse. Picture by: Alamy.com.

When questioned whether a charge would be fair to working class people who are struggling to make ends meet, Professor O’Malley said people who drive “tend to be middle class people”. 

He added that politicians also need to consider the impact of the inner city being deluged by cars twice a day. 

“We could have an argument about whether it's fair or not,” he said. 

“But it's certainly not fair on the people who live in the inner city to have their kind of area, their playgrounds, used as a sort of a throughway for people who want to get from one side of the city to the other.” 

Professor O’Malley also called for the end of free parking at shopping centres, which he said would incentivise people to drive part of the way to work, park up and then hop on a train, DART or Luas. 

“We shouldn't be allowing people to park for free,” he said. 

“I mean, free parking is one of the biggest problems with transport, that people can just dump their car wherever they want, sometimes illegally.

“I would suggest that we should start enforcing a charge on out-of-town shopping centres.” 

Traffic in Dublin. Picture by: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie.

Professor O’Malley added that he believes a congestion toll will be introduced “eventually”, although he admitted it would be politically unpopular. 

“I think until we actually remove the cars, the public transport system won't work,” he said. 

“While Bus Connects is sitting in traffic jams, it's not going to work.

“And so the only way to make the public transport option viable is to take the cars off first.”

Main image: Traffic in Dublin. Picture by: Rolling News.ie