Mr. Barry Kenny:

In terms of the western rail corridor, we are working to terms of reference established by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. I think people probably worry when they hear the phrase "value for money" and wonder whether it is a narrow financial assessment. It is not a narrow financial assessment at all. Infrastructure requires public support. It requires something that does not just mention the bottom line of an individual organisation. It looks at the economic return, the benefits to society and the connectivity it provides. They are the terms of reference to which EY-DKM will work when looking at the financial and wider economic benefits the extension would yield. The public consultation will allow people to express their opinions freely. We know there are many opinions on the topic. That opportunity will be there. We will advertise that extensively and ensure people in the region and beyond are fully aware that this consultation is taking place. Ultimately, after the Department's independent peer review, it will become a policy decision because, obviously, public funding will be required if the line is reinstated based on the outputs of that. That will be a decision at Department or political level but it will be a comprehensive and independent study. The terms of reference have been set out and EY-DKM will work to them and report to us and the Department.

Regarding wider services for the west, thankfully, the passenger growth I mentioned has continued in the west as well. Looking at last year as an example, the Dublin to Westport line grew further. It was relatively modest at 570,000 to 582,000 in the year. The Dublin to Galway line grew up to 1.4 million journeys through the year. With the various suite of figures, it would be 1.4 million journeys on the Dublin to Sligo line. The figure was 577,000 for the Westport to Ballina line. I got the Galway figure wrong. It was just two million journeys during 2018.

The growth we are seeing is spreading nationally. In the early days when passenger growth was coming back to us, it was driven at an urban level primarily but now it is growing nationally. Overall on intercity journeys, it outstripped DART and commuter growth last year by 8.5%. There is probably more capacity within the existing services on the intercity lines versus how it would be on the DART or commuter lines, but nonetheless we are coming up against the same constraints we have. That 41-carriage order, which is the shorter-term measure, will benefit both intercity and commuter routes. We will be looking at heavily loaded services in the peaks to provide additional capacity in the first instance on individual services.

When we proceed to the bigger order, the trains start to come through and we increase our overall pool of trains, and with the works on infrastructure in areas closer to the city where infrastructural capacity is more at a premium, we will be allowed to operate more trains at the time in question. The first wave is about longer trains and the second about more trains. It will be late 2021 to 2022 when the longer trains become available. It will be 2024 and later before the expansion of services. In short, that is how we are working.

We have increased services. It is not long since there were three trains each way per day on the Dublin–Sligo line. There are now eight. The number on the Westport line has increased from three to five. We would like the frequency to increase further. We are updating our overall strategy on intercity services to ensure there is clarity and direction to service frequency improvement. As evident from the Dublin-Cork line, which moved to an hourly service all day, we genuinely believe there is a genuine step change in the number of people who travel with us.

The Westport line, for example, has a connection off the Dublin–Galway line. With a mix of direct and changing services, there is no reason the Dublin–Galway and Dublin–Westport services could not be hourly, which would be transformative. Frequency is not just about more trains; it gives customers more flexibility and makes the overall service more attractive. While Sligo has more of its existing infrastructural capacity utilised, it is a matter of determining how we can grow it further. We see potential in this regard right around the network as the investment funding comes into play.

With regard to freight services, we have recently increased the volume of the Ballina–Dublin Port freight services. We continue to work with the likes of the Irish Exporters Association and freight forwarders to identify opportunities. Many of them tend to be linked to significant investment programmes. I refer to identifying traffic best suited to rail freight, tying in with planning processes. We have a number of options in this regard. We are probably in non-disclosure territory as we discuss the matter with potential customers. We are confident, however, that the scale of rail freight operation can continue to grow in the coming years. In the past couple of months, the Ballina–Dublin operation has increased. I hope that addresses the points made.