James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I completely understand the premise of the question I am asking and how big a challenge it is. I am asking because there is a drive at European level for increased investment in rail. The latter will require completely new infrastructure because of the electrification requirements. We probably cannot use ancient rail bridges and all of that. Irish infrastructure went through a renaissance during the Celtic tiger years with buildings on the motorway network to a cost in the tens of billions. I wonder will the great undertaking in Ireland from an infrastructural point of view in the next 50 years be the implementation of high-speed rail. The reality is that for somebody like me who regularly drives from Cork to Dublin, the incentive is not yet there to leave the car at home because of the time saved by driving. By the time someone from east Cork has parked at Kent Station, boarded a train to Heuston Station and arrived in the city centre of Dublin, an extra hour or hour and a half will have been added to the journey time compared with how long it would have taken by car. The premise of my question about high-speed rail is to address that. Have our guests costings on how much it would cost to install railway lines that could accommodate speeds of 300 km/h in Ireland?