Mr. Hugh Creegan:

The railway order going to An Bord Pleanála next year will be related to the coastal line. As the Deputy knows, that is looking at improvements as far as Greystones, in particular, to try to get a 20-minute DART service there. I would say it is not appropriate to amend that process at the moment. If the Deputy thinks about it in the following terms, we have to have a statutory basis to submit a plan to An Bord Pleanála and it is the new strategy that gives us that basis and it is not adopted yet. We are currently working off the old strategy. Having said that, putting in the extra infrastructure that is needed to run electric trains - if we can make it operationally work as far as Wicklow - is not a big task. In reality, it probably only requires a charging system at Wicklow station. There are operational challenges around making sure the train you want to extend to Wicklow is one with batteries on it as opposed to just pure electric. That is an operational challenge we will have to tease out with Irish Rail.

I would be reluctant to say it should be included in the railway order. I am much more comfortable in saying that it should be progressed as a parallel, separate project. It is a relatively small project that could be delivered in parallel. Therefore, including it or not does not necessarily impact the timeline.