Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It included quite radical solutions, potentially, such as considering going back to the historic route of the line, which went via Omagh and Strabane up to Derry, rather than running the line from Portadown up the north-east and north coast. That would require UK Government funding. Nichola Mallon and I had meetings with Sir Peter Hendy twice on this issue to make the case.

Separately, the reality of the rail review is that it expanded from initially looking at the high speed Dublin-Belfast-Cork line to a much wider consideration of freight and other underutilised rail lines, such as Waterford-Limerick and the western rail corridor. It will be very all-encompassing. I am looking forward to seeing the results. As we just talked about, I hope it will come up with innovative solutions to optimise the existing network and, where appropriate, expand it. It is very expensive to expand the network but, to go back to the issue of Limerick and four underutilised rail lines in and out of a city, it is about whether we can optimise existing assets under the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI, strategic direction. I do not think we are making the best use of the existing network.