Mr. John Mulligan:

I represent the Western Rail Trail Alliance, an umbrella group that includes the Quiet Man Greenway campaign, the East Mayo Greenway group and the Sligo Greenway Co-Op. These three separate, but aligned, campaigns enjoy significant public support.

Collectively, we seek to have a greenway built on or alongside the various closed and disused rail lines that connect Athenry, County Galway with Collooney, County Sligo. Collooney is already a starting point for a cross-Border greenway project to develop a greenway from Sligo to Enniskillen, using parts of an old rail alignment and some private lands. The complete greenway from Enniskillen to Athenry, with a potential connection to the Great Western Greenway at the Turlough Park House museum, would create the longest greenway network in Ireland and would be a game changer for tourism, leisure and the quality of life needed to attract and retain remote workers in towns along the Atlantic economic corridor.

The committee will hear from rail lobbyists seeking to have a railway built on some or all of this alignment. We do not oppose this proposal although we recognise that it may not happen in whole or in part for several decades. This is a key point and we ask that the rail review take account of this reality. All recent reports on the viability of rail on this route have found against rail investment and we take a pragmatic view that if such investment is ever forthcoming, it is a long way into the future. In the meantime, while keeping rail as a priority, we seek to preserve the route with a greenway, not only to provide jobs and amenity now but also to stop further encroachment and loss of this asset to public ownership.

Costings around the Sligo greenway project showed the cost of building on the existing track bed to be approximately one third of the cost of building the greenway alongside the scrap line. Retaining a rusting and rotting line for future rail use makes no sense; we believe that the cheaper option of building a greenway on the track bed should be chosen now. In the event that a rail project is ever funded on the route, the greenway can at that time be relocated to the edge of the alignment as part of the rail construction project. This is the plan for the Sligo greenway, and the model is successful elsewhere with projects such as the Athlone to Mullingar, Waterford to Dungarvan and, indeed, Navan to Kingscourt greenways.

We spoke to Irish Rail on a number of occasions in this respect and it has no objection to the stone ballast being used as a base for a greenway, and it agrees that this is not in conflict with the primary use of the asset for rail in the future.

In summary, I will make these following few points. There is currently no viable railway in existence on the alignment from Athenry to Collooney; what is there is scrap and of no value in any future rail project. Retaining what is there has no bearing on any future use of the asset. The regional spatial economic strategies, RSES, support the interim use of the asset as a greenway, and this is clearly identified in the recent RSES for the west and north west. Our proposal and our aims are not in conflict with the aims of the rail lobby groups that seek to have a railway built on the route. In fact, we believe they complement them as a greenway will protect the route in public ownership in perpetuity, should a railway ever be feasible. There is also a potential future synergy between rail and greenway on the same alignment.

We recognise that the list of mooted rail projects in Ireland is a long one, and that routes where passenger numbers are far in excess of the most optimistic projections for the so-called western rail corridor will of necessity get priority within this list. Any rail project on this route is likely to happen well into the future and all we ask is that available funding is used now to preserve the alignment with a greenway in the interim. Report after report have firmly refuted any case for a railway but were delivered with political get-out clauses that suggested that this may change in the medium term. This political fudging and indecision helps nobody. We have been engaged in this debate for over a decade, and in that time the railway is no closer to being delivered. We ask that the all-Ireland rail review draw a line under this matter and decide whether all or part of this route will ever be used for rail, and if so, when. If rail is a viable option, build it and build a greenway alongside it. If it is not a viable option at this time, build the greenway and when rail makes sense, build a railway and relocate the greenway to run alongside it as is done successfully elsewhere.

We are asking for the all-island rail review to clearly state that the closed railway from Athenry to Collooney must be preserved in public ownership until such time as a railway is possible. We want the report to recommend the route be protected using international best practice of allowing the route to be converted to a greenway, with future rail use as a priority.

This is about asset management, leveraging a State-owned asset to provide jobs and amenity now, while protecting it for future rail or other transport use. I ask the committee to ensure that decisions that condemn towns along the route to no investment of any kind are not made yet again.