Ms Marie Casserly:

I am very pleased to be able to inform the committee that Sligo County Council has listened to the public and taken heed of what people have been saying in Sligo. Mr. Quinn has outlined how the campaign has had to persuade the county councils to come on board. I am pleased to confirm that, as far as Sligo is concerned, the council is firmly in favour of the Sligo greenway, which will run on the closed railway line from Collooney, southwards to the Sligo-Mayo border at Bellahy-Charlestown, until such time as a railway might be economically viable. This part of the route will be known as the "Sligo Greenway". However, this is only part of a much bigger project which Sligo County Council is working on with the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.

Working with the local authorities in Leitrim and Cavan and the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, a cross-Border project has been agreed to develop a greenway on the closed railway route from Enniskillen to Collooney and to continue then on to Charlestown. This cross-Border co-operation is part of the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement and has benefited from the shared island fund.

The Department of Transport, working with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, has already invested more than €500,000 in taking the plans for this long-distance, cross-Border greenway through the first development stages. Sligo County Council is now working closely with these agencies to take the project to the next stages of planning and ultimately construction. The Sligo greenway will be of huge significance to the region. It will benefit tourism and be a huge local amenity for communities along the route.

It is important for the committee to take note that, as far as Sligo is concerned, the Sligo section of the western rail trail greenway will happen, and it is such a pity the same cannot be said for Mayo. As a member of Sligo County Council, I have made representations to Mayo County Council to consider joining with Sligo to extend the Sligo greenway down through Mayo as far as Claremorris and to allow east Mayo to benefit from the tourism boom this would bring to the region. If the Sligo greenway could connect through Mayo to the great western greenway, just imagine the benefits this would bring to the region. It would simply be a huge economic benefit for the region and it would be a huge social benefit to people in towns such as Charlestown, Swinford, Kiltimagh and Claremorris.

I am keeping my comments short, but I ask the committee to bring our thoughts to all the Departments concerned so that they listen to the people in Mayo and Galway. The idea of a greenway along this closed railway is quite simply a no-brainer.

An American diplomat, George Ball, said: "Nostalgia is a seductive liar." Like a talented seductress, nostalgia will rope you in and cause you to lose sight of reality. It will present you with a sugar-coated version of the past - sweet enough to dampen the present and colourful enough to cast a shadow on the future.

My vision for our country is to have an all-island, all-Ireland, cross-Border, cross-community necklace of greenways that will change Ireland's future positively for many decades to come. We owe this to our future generations. This is not a dream, but a feasible and attainable goal if we work together and harness the power of greenways to transform our island into a model of sustainability, inclusivity and well-being.