Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

I will give the Irish context and I come from outside Askeaton in County Limerick. In 2000, the Foynes line was mothballed and a decision was made not to maintain it. At the time the then chief executive, and I worked with the port over a period, asked for the line to be maintained, as it would cost between €50,000 to €100,000 just to keep it in a mothballed condition but where trains could still be run on it. We are now at the point, for example, where we have been talking about reopening it for the best part of 20 years and it is obviously a key piece of infrastructure. Depending on what standard it is reopened at, it will cost between €25 million and €45 million to do so. If the line had been maintained and if we had a long-term view of what we want strategically to get out of our railway, the cost of reopening it would be considerably less. This arises because we have not had a rail freight policy. I believe Jim Meade has appeared in front of this committee and has said that rail freight has to widen its base.