Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 January 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Capital Projects and Operations: Iarnród Éireann

Mr. Jim Meade:

There absolutely is. We have a heritage policy. Even if we did not, we are obligated to act in this regard in the context of the local authorities. Many of our buildings are listed structures, even including some of the signal cabins mentioned by the Deputy, that we must maintain even if they go out of use. We are generally happy to do so. We look at repurposing buildings too. In Portarlington, we have just done a complete refurbishment of the old station house and some of our own people are going to use it so that infrastructure comes back to life. It is a beautiful, cut-stone building. In Galway, we repurposed the old engine shed from the Victorian era and it is now a staff facility for our drivers. We glazed the end of it looking out on Lough Atalia. There is a beautiful vista there now and we put the canteen in the upstairs level. We have, therefore, repurposed that old building and brought it back to life. There was a second area there as well. Bus Éireann saw what we were able to do, and now we are doing that for its staff too. We are investing significantly in Connolly Station, which is our headquarters, because again it is a national monument and we have responsibility to maintain it. In that context, we are repurposing some of the arches under station, as well as the interior of the building, to be able to get more densification and more bodies into the building. Indeed, we invested not an insignificant amount of money in the area under Connolly Station, where our group medical centre is now. The stone arches there are all beautiful. They exist because, as I referred to earlier, the railway is elevated right through the city centre. Our complete medical centre is now located in those arches. The building is probably going to win several awards this year for what we did with it, how we repurposed it into a medical centre and how we preserved all the architecture of that area.

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