Mr. Brendan Quinn:

I thank Senator Murphy. I know we are not to bring politics into it.

We have deep frustrations with Mayo County Council on this issue. I will not go into the politics of it. It started back in 2013 when 400 submissions were made to the council. We argued with it a lot about it and it was not even mentioned in the county plan. In the meantime - I did not mention this in my spiel - we got 800 submissions for the north-west regional authority plan. It was written into the north-west regional authority plan that the authors agreed with the idea. It is not for want of telling them. Thousands of submissions have been made, but the key thing was the fact that Irish Rail and the Department of Transport were clear about this. Deputy Cannon said there has been ambivalence about what direction they are going on the Claremorris to Athenry route. They were clear, and I said it in the speech, they name the route and state that nothing will happen north of Claremorris. Deputy Kenny can say what he likes about having the railway the whole way to Collooney, but it will be in his dreams or when he is pushing up the daisies. I really believe that.

In any event, there are so many nitty-gritty bits of detail. Between Claremorris and Collooney, there are 365 railway crossings. The road twists and turns like a spaghetti baked and thrown on the floor. It is not feasible for a modern railway to be brought on that route. I have heard arguments for keeping the closed railway in situ. The railway does not exist. It is scrap metal. It would need to be pulled up. There was an old railway on the new railway line from Limerick to Ennis, which was pulled up and put to one side and a new railway was put down, so that argument is totally false. It was used for the Velorail. The point the Senator made is absolutely true. I was astounded by Mayo County Council. It was at the final stages of submitting the county plan that the county manager - I have a document here - in his final recommendations to the members said to take out the clause that the western rail corridor, WRC, is protected and preserved for the delivery of rail infrastructure to develop the region and the corridor is completely removed from any feasibility study for the WRC. He asked for it to be taken out. Irish Rail made a second submission asking for it to be taken out. Guess what happened. It was left in. It was built into the county plan another eight years of doing sweet Fanny Adams.