Mr. Hugh Creegan:

We have not yet carried out a cost-benefit analysis but we will. We have done enough work to be satisfied that there will be a high level of passenger flow, with people interchanging at Charlemont. The same journey will be possible but people will just have to make a change at Charlemont station where they will alight from the Luas and board the metro. When we move on with the design work, we will finish the analysis but we are fully confident it will provide value for money. The metro is being sized for the same size and, therefore, it will handle up to 20,000 passengers per hour in one direction and we remain confident about all the work we have done. The project will provide value for money but we are conscious we will need to provide a robust cost estimate in the future.

On metro west, the question of how we are serving the west of the city has been raised several times. We have a transport strategy in place which sets the framework for the overall development of transport throughout Dublin. Much work went into preparing that, there is ministerial approval behind it, and it is a statutory plan. Within that plan, the west of the city has not been ignored and two important lines are proposed to be built in the first ten years, with a third to follow. The first is the DART to Maynooth, as the national development plan, NDP, provides for DART services as far as Maynooth on the Maynooth train line, while the second is the DART on the Kildare train line as far as Celbridge at least. We are proceeding to progress that project, and in the next month, we hope to kick off a tender process to acquire a fleet to put in place those DART services in the coming years. The NDP provides for those two DART lines to be developed before 2027.

The NDP and our transport strategy also provide for a Luas line to Lucan in the future. While it is not included within the first ten years of the NDP, it is included in our transport strategy. As well as the existing red line, there will be DART services on the Maynooth line and the Kildare line and there will be a Luas to Lucan. It is important to remember there is also a bus system, which we sometimes overlook, and there is much being invested to provide an improved bus system for the west of the city, through the Greenhills corridor to Tallaght, the Clondalkin to Drimnagh corridor, the Liffey Valley corridor and the Lucan corridor. Much is being invested, therefore, in the west of Dublin to put in place good transport links in the future.