Mr. Tom O'Mahony:

The main interest at present is in seeking where possible to have those routes preserved for potential other purposes that would fit in with the sustainable travel agenda or with the promotion of tourism. The obvious example is cycleways or greenways, of which a number of developments are already in train. In my own area, Dunboyne, as Deputy McEntee will know very well, when it came to reopening our rail services a number of years ago one of the issues was that some land had to be reacquired because it had been lost. Clearly, even if a service is not running there is a benefit in preserving the rail way or route, as much as is possible.