John O’Dowd defends department over Belfast’s ‘traffic chaos’

In response to another MLA, he added: “I’m looking at your rural colleagues as they look in envy upon Belfast receiving its £3.2m roads improvement, its £340m bus and rail station.”

“Your rural colleagues are going: ‘What are you complaining about?’”

But O’Dowd accepted there have been traffic congestion issues in Belfast, adding: “We are reviewing it.”

The minister said a “major artery into Belfast” was being resurfaced and “we cannot completely plan out inconvenience”.

O’Dowd said he has asked his officials to “monitor the Belfast situation closely” and consider interim measures at Grand Central Station, such as changes to traffic light operations.

He said he accepted there are “always circumstances where public transport is not suitable”, but he added that “when you are sitting in traffic, perhaps one question we need to ask ourselves is could we use public transport?”.

“Because when you are sitting in traffic, you are the traffic,” he added.