Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have additional information to bring to the conversation. So far, the Department of Transport has invested €375,000 in a feasibility, planning and design study. Consultants have been recruited to carry out the feasibility, planning and design study on the section of the greenway from Athenry to Milltown so there is already significant investment on the part of the Department of Transport to determine the possibility of putting a greenway on that section between Athenry and Milltown and, ultimately and hopefully, all the way to Claremorris and onwards bearing in mind the fact that Sligo County Council is many steps ahead here in terms of developing its section and that this rail line has lain idle for 40 years and will connect east Galway all the way up to beautiful Sligo and onwards to Enniskillen in a cross-Border initiative that is already substantially underway. An incredible opportunity will present itself in the next three to five years to develop something really impactful.

Obviously all of us who have the west of Ireland's interests at heart would dearly love to see an enhancement of our rail services all along the western rail corridor but I do not see that happening for at least the next 15 to 20 years. I want to be able to walk away from Leinster House and say I worked with people like Mr. Quinn and Mr. Mulligan and the many others who have been campaigning for this for a very long time to deliver something that has changed substantially and enhanced the lives of people who live along that rail line and who drive, walk and cycle by it every day looking in over the fence at weeds growing on it. It is just shameful.