Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I will comment initially. The Bradley report looked at the actual cost of building the railway. It considered that the EY costings were exorbitant. The Chairman may recall that two weeks ago, the chief executive of Iarnród Éireann confirmed to this committee that the cost of rebuilding a mile of existing railway would be €1.5 million or €1.75 million. Obviously, the cost of signalling and so on would be in addition to that. Taking a round figure of €2 million or €2.5 million for the 35 miles from Athenry to Claremorris, you would not come in at €260 million, as EY did. The EY report factored in new rolling stock, which is not necessary because Iarnród Éireann will have an enormous amount of cascaded rolling stock once the new trains come on stream next year. That was an unnecessary cost. There are various other things in the report which, when analysed, showed that the costings were exorbitant. When one does a cost-benefit analysis, one has to examine issues like whether one is going to get value for money and how much money will have to be spent. Dr. Bradley put forward the answer, which was checked with people who are involved in railways both in this country and in Britain, that it can be built for €154 million. As I said previously, that is the cost of approximately three or four miles of motorway. That is a differential of well over €100 million.