Ms Deirdre Hanlon:

What I said was that was the priority set when times were hard and we had to cut very deeply into capital budgets. We asked what was the best thing to do and it was to hunker down and keep the existing extensive network running. Now that more capital funding is coming forward and being profiled under the national development plan, we can do that. We have reached the steady state of keeping the existing networks going and we can undertake targeted additional projects. Several of those projects are specifically set out in the national development plan, such as the metro, BusConnects and the DART expansion, but there is also scope for more. What is happening in respect of the western rail corridor is that the Government has told Irish Rail to do an up-to-date robust business case and return with it. When Irish Rail returns with that, in accordance with the programme for Government commitment there will be an independent review and peer assessment of the Irish Rail case because there is a significant degree of dispute as to the robustness and quality of figures that are being put forward by different parties.