Comment & Analysis: News coverage of the lifting of the Dublin Airports passenger cap is missing one phrase, and no, Im not referring to climate change. Its missing that as well, but Im thinking of the M50.The M50 and the lack of transport capacity to/from the airport are the main reasons for the airports planning cap, not climate change.Although the problems are the same. We clearly have a national inability to plan and consider the consequences of Government actions. Or, as is often more correctly described as the Government acting after decades of inaction in providing the infrastructure we need.On Tuesday, Minister for Transport Darragh OBrien said: This Government recognises the strategic importance of Dublin Airport as our primary international gateway and the vital role it plays in supporting economic growth, connectivity and jobs across the State, but his announcement to remove the cap contained nothing about the road that is often talked about in the same vein.Governments get a lot of stick for inaction. But their actions need to be somewhat intelligent and look at the wider picture.A great example is how flood defences in one spot can make flooding worse in another it was great to hear a Government Minister accept this point recently on the radio. He said a flood upstream can cause flooding further along a river. But just like flooding needs a holistic approach looking at the wider water catchment area so too does transport planning.Our planning system has been put in place in the way it is, at arms length from politicians, because of past issues. But this is now being overruled yet again, and were told it makes sense again this time.To be clear: Im not even hinting at any corruption or other similar illegality with the airport cap, but the consequences can be just as bad or worse. Take your pick between clogging the M50 up more, fines for not reaching our climate targets, and the long-term results of not doing so.Good planning has previously been overridden for landowners and developers, and now its the turn of doing it for Ryanair boss Michael OLeary and pressure from US airlines.While the US and other airlines are heavelly lobbying and putting on pressure behind closed doors, and Ryanair is taking its usual more brash approach (top marks for transparency at least) with a recent press release declaring Michel do nothing Martin dossing in Davos, but no action to scrap Dublin Airport cap as soon as possible and Must Ireland wait until US blocks Aer Lingus flights, or cancels Martins white house visit, before Dublins illegal cap is scrapped??Dont fear; even if you are somewhat like OLeary and want to dismiss the evidence that climate change is already making extreme weather, such as flooding, more likely and more severe, the M50 capacity issue will hit harder and more quickly.The nationally important road, which also acts as a key link to Dublin Port, is at capacity and often over capacity. Only weeks ago, it was the most important issue for a few days in media coverage. The national importance of Dublin Port is often underestimated. Dublin Port points out that ports handle almost 90% of goods coming into Ireland, and that they alone handle almost two-thirds of that. The port also handles 80% of all containerised freight. Much like our other infrastructure issues, the move to shift more freight from road to rail is undermined by historic underinvestment, by people with other interests, and by doubters.With Dublin Airport, the 32 million passengers per annum cap, which planners put as a condition of Terminal 2s planning permission in 2008, isnt some environmental madness as the likes of OLeary like to put it. Its a cap grounded in planning.As well as MetroLink and BusConnects improving public transport access to the airport, Fingal County Council planners also recommended redundancy for road access, with a suggestion of a new access via the N/M3 corridor because the reliance on the M50/M1 route is subject to major disruption from even minor crashes.But in the 17 years since 2008, key projects, such as a metro line, have been repeatedly delayed.Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) recently said that it needs the Government to make policy decisions to take further action on the M50, but the message in headlines and our airways screamed Weve done all we can do to fix M50.Theres quite a difference between those two things.I have made it clear that they are in favour of camera enforcement on the M50 to reduce crashes, thereby reducing deaths, injuries, and congestion. And there are other ways to reduce congestion, such as multi-point tolling and peak pricing to discourage trips that could otherwise be made off-peak.There is a system which displays variable-speed limits on the M50, but it only shows advisory speeds. The law allowing variable speed limits was enacted in 2023, and backing for this was added to the Traffic Signs Manual in 2024, but there has been no apparent progress since.Any measure to improve the M50 in the short-term or long-term requires the Government to take action first and approve the policy decision, and these kinds of decisions are not popular, so they are again and again delayed.We have the same issue with medium to longer-term planning and project-level decisions. One area where those involved in planning transport got it wrong was the ill-fated Metro West unlike MetroLink, which is planned between the city centre and Swords, Metro West, which would partly mirror the M50, is hardly talked about.The National Transport Authority possibly with a bit of realism, given the lack of sustained political will to fund public transport said a number of years ago that Metro West lacked demand. This is just not a tenable position today.Large projects like this need to be both grounded in evidence and also have politicians making decisions. Having Metro West ready to start once or even before MetroLink is finished makes perfect sense, and its this kind of pipeline of projects that makes delivery possible and keeps costs lower.But the firefighting decision-making of Government is too fearful of saying yes to a second metro line while so many powerful voices are against the first, and the Facebook commentators and radio show texters are so obsessed by the Childrens Hospital that all public spending is seen through that lens.There has also been endless commentary on how a rail link from Irish Rails northern line to the airport could replace MetroLink, when such discussion is pointless, as our rail plans say both are needed, and currently, capacity constraints on the northern line south of the airport mean theres also no capacity to service a branch line to the airport.In the shorter term, more investment in buses, including an acceleration of the BusConnects infrastructure plan, could also offer some extra capacity to the airport. The Government could even go further by looking at how local buses and intercity coaches could have dedicated routes at least between the Swords Road and M1 and the terminal buildings.But were not hearing of any of this. Its just celebrations from some that the cap be removed. Planning is gone out the window, again.