Mr. Jim Meade:

The Deputy mentioned the Foynes line. It is progressing very well. We intend to have all of the track laid in by the end of this year. As late as yesterday afternoon, I met with the main contractor there, Sisk, to discuss that very point. I have been assured that the track work will be all laid in by the end of the year. We are getting great support from the Department of Transport on this, in fairness. We have basically got the green light to finish out and do the signalling and the level crossing, so we are on track to have that finalised by very late 2025 or quarter 1 of 2026.

It is a freight line that is going in, and we are currently only considering it for freight. We are looking to move freight trains on it. That said, a train line is a train line, so once we have it, it would mean we could do something about passengers or putting in stations.

The Deputy mentioned the Ryder Cup, and there is a focus on the Ryder Cup and obviously the road extension to deal with that. TII approached us to assist them with that project because we have the expertise in Mr. Hendrick's team and his colleague, the director of infrastructure's team as well. We are going to do the three main bridges on that route for TII because we can do it faster and better than TII can at the moment. Did I say better? It is to help TII to help us all in delivering that project on time. It is a critical project for Limerick, and it will be a big showcase for Ireland Inc. That is all very much in train. We can, at the time, build temporary platforms. Once the line is there, we can operate passenger trains, even in a temporary case for the Ryder Cup.

I would agree that the line offers the potential. It is part of the LSMATS strategy, from a transport perspective, of putting in passenger services on that line, be it at Patrickswell, Adare, Raheen, Dooradoyle, the hospital or Castlemungret, which is a big residential area. All of that possibility is there, and we would say that we should absolutely do it. At Raheen, it would be at the back of Regeneron and beside where Eli Lilly is about to build. Regeneron is about 4,000-strong at the moment, and Eli Lilly would be as big, so we would have big communities of people moving in and out of there for work. It certainly is an opportunity if we want to do something significant around Limerick as part of the LSMATS plan to grow the rail infrastructure. We can certainly do it, and we are happy to work with the chief executive of the local authority there, Dr. Pat Daly, to look at the city and county development plan to see how we can assist with anything on it.