Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am very glad these hearings are happening. Anything that gives us an opportunity to speak about this and try to tease out the difficulties and how we can progress all of these projects is very welcome. Ultimately, we need to see the western rail corridor fully developed the whole way along. This is the ambition of the vast majority of people living in the west and we recognise this. We also need to see our tourism and active travel input being developed. We need to see greenways put in everywhere we possibly can. It should not be either-or, and none of us wants to see it as this.

Mr. Kenny mentioned there may be some difficulties with putting the greenway alongside the rail track. If we had this in place in 15 years' time it would be the optimum solution. We would have active travel and rail. It would tick all the boxes with regard to complying with our climate ambitions. To do this would be a tremendous achievement. Mr. Kenny mentioned that there may be difficulties with regard to the land and the amount of space there is. Are there options or can options be looked at in order that we could develop both? How much more expensive would it be than to put down just a rail line?