The disjoint paths problem asks, given an graph G and k + 1 pairs of terminals (s_0,t_0), ...,(s_k,t_k), whether there are k+1 pairwise disjoint paths P_0, ...,P_k, such that P_i connects s_i to t_i. Robertson and Seymour have proven that the problem can be solved in polynomial time if k is fixed. Nevertheless, the constants involved are huge, and the algorithm is far from implementable. The algorithm uses a bound on the tree-width of graphs with vital linkages, and deletion of irrelevant vertices. We give single exponential lower bounds both for the tree-width of planar graphs with vital linkages, and for the size of the grid necessary for finding irrelevant vertices.