Mr. Garret Doocey:

Many thanks for the invitation to appear before the committee today. By way of introduction, I am the assistant secretary general in the Department with responsibility for active travel, public transport and roads investment. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. David O’Grady, who is a principal adviser from our regional and local roads division. In the interests of time, I will take it that the speech will be on the record and will skip through some parts of it. As per the committee's invitation, I will start the discussion with a brief overview of responsibilities, structures, and frameworks in place between our Department and its agencies as they relate to infrastructure delivery before highlighting some examples of delivery in the transport sector since the publication of the previous NDP. I will then briefly look forward to the next few years.

The Department of Transport has responsibility for policy development and implementation in key areas of the land transport sector, such as active travel, public transport and roads. The Department secured a budget allocation for 2025 of €3.9 billion, comprising more than €1 billion in current funding and €2.9 billion in capital funding. Delivering transport infrastructure projects depends on a highly integrated approach between our Department, which has which is responsible for policy and management of the overall capital budget, the day-to-day approving authorities, such as the NTA, in relation to active travel and public transport, or TII, in relation to national roads, and sponsoring agencies, such as Iarnród Éireann in the rail sector and local authorities across the country for both roads and active travel programmes. Agencies in the transport sector such as TII and the NTA are well positioned and bring a wealth of experience to their roles as approving authorities and sponsoring agencies. Accordingly, the transport sector is on a strong footing for ensuring that transport projects align with national objectives and deliver value for money for the taxpayer.

The Department has developed the national investment framework for transport in Ireland, NIFTI, which is the high-level strategic framework to support the consideration and prioritisation of future investment in land transport. NIFTI establishes both modal and intervention hierarchies for investment proposals. For example, active travel and public transport solutions should be considered before private transport and maintenance and optimisation of existing assets should be considered before substantial improvements or new infrastructure. This seeks to ensure that the most sustainable and cost-effective solution to a given transport need is identified. Sitting underneath NIFTI is the transport appraisal framework, TAF, a transport-specific set of appraisal guidelines developed in line with the overarching infrastructure guidelines. The TAF provides appraisal and implementation guidance that aims to encourage the consideration of a wide range of options to achieve policy objectives and promotes investment in the transport system that is in line with international best practice, meets the needs of society, fulfils strategic policy objectives, and delivers value for money through a common framework for robust transport appraisal.

In terms of oversight of our investment programme, the Department has a number of structures in place across each of the major investment areas. On active travel, the Department meets quarterly with the NTA to review progress at a programme level, with the NTA overseeing delivery at the project level. On public transport, the Department meets monthly with the NTA to monitor delivery across the public transport programme with a specific focus on those projects classed as major projects by the infrastructure guidelines. There are separate arrangements in place regarding the protection and renewal of the rail network, which are derived from EU law and see the Department and the Commission for Railway Regulation overseeing the delivery of the programme on the ground by Iarnród Éireann. On national roads, the Department meets quarterly with TII to review progress across the national road programme, with a particular departmental focus on those major projects costing more than €200 million that have received Government approval. With regard to regional and local roads, arrangements differ somewhat, reflecting the fact that the Department itself is the approving authority in this sector, with the Department’s engineering inspectorate carrying out on-site inspections with the local authority and represented on construction stage monitoring committees, desk and on-site checks carried out to ensure compliance with departmental procedures and strategic advisory committee meetings held with senior local authority personnel and Department staff to consult and review the regional and local roads programme.

As a Department we are actively engaged with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation in reviewing the current NDP and seeking to deliver improved transport outcomes for citizens across the country. This NDP will hopefully build on the successes that we have seen since publication of the previous NDP. While there is rightly a renewed focus on improving delivery, it is also important to acknowledge the delivery that has occurred since publication of the previous NDP in 2021. In active travel, for example, we have seen the investment programme brought outside of the five metropolitan areas and into towns, villages and rural areas that have never had consistent investment in active travel infrastructure.

Investment of the past five years has supported the delivery of more than 1,000 km of walking and cycling infrastructure across the country, and all delivered on the ground by local authorities working for the benefit of their local communities.

In public transport, new bus and train fleets are already in service, with a new DART fleet in testing for entry into service next year and an order for a new Enterprise fleet expected to be signed later this year. Importantly, these investments are supporting our decarbonisation efforts with a fully electric service in operation in Athlone, bus depots already electrified in Dublin and Limerick and plans to do similar elsewhere well advanced, battery-electric units forming part of the new DART fleet and electric double-decker buses in service in Dublin and Limerick.

On the rail network, charging facilities are being constructed in Drogheda to support the new battery-electric units already mentioned, a new station opened at Pelletstown and another under construction at Woodbrook, with another new station under construction in Waterford, forming the centre of a new city quarter at the North Quays. The largest ever investment in Cork’s rail network is under way, with the new platform in Kent Station already opened, signalling upgrades under construction and double tracking from Glounthaune to Midleton well under way. In Limerick, Colbert Station has been redeveloped, with a modern integrated bus-rail and public realm project completed and open for use. The disused Foynes line is being brought back into service as a freight line. In Galway, Ceannt Station is being redeveloped to deliver a much improved passenger experience, with works at Oranmore station expected to start next year. Importantly, this year, we have increased funding by 67% for the retrofitting of legacy infrastructure to make it more accessible, particularly for disabled and older people.

Of course, public transport is not just about infrastructure but is also about services, and since the previous NDP we have seen expanded public transport services delivered in every part of the country. New town bus services have been rolled out in Athlone, Carlow, Clonmel and Portlaoise, with services planned for Ennis and Mullingar next. In towns such as Dundalk, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Navan and Sligo, existing services have been improved, with additional capacity provided to support service expansion. Across rural areas, Connecting Ireland has brought over 150 new and enhanced bus services to parts of the country that have not had scheduled public transport services for many years, if ever in some places. In Dublin, new services have been rolled out as part of the BusConnects programme with similar planned for each of the other four cities. The response to these investments has been phenomenal with an average of approximately 1 million passenger journeys now being made across Ireland’s public transport network every day.

Importantly, we have also seen investment in our road network over the same period, improving regional accessibility, alleviating problems caused by through-traffic in rural towns and supporting that expanded public transport network already mentioned. Investment under the current NDP on the national road network has delivered the N4 Collooney to Castlebaldwin scheme, the N5 Westport to Turlough scheme, the Dunkettle interchange upgrade, the Baile Bhuirne to Macroom scheme and bypasses of both Listowel and Moycullen, which have been completed and are open for use. On the regional and local road network, eight of the 12 strategic schemes listed in the NDP have been completed, including the Athy southern distributor road, Sallins bypass, Bettystown to Laytown relief road and the recently opened Shannon crossing and Killaloe bypass. Across both roads programmes, a number of important schemes are currently in construction, such as the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge, the M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy and the Adare bypass schemes. On the regional and local road network, the Tralee northern relief road and the Coonagh to Knockalisheen Road in Limerick are under construction.

A critically important part of infrastructure is ensuring that a sufficient pipeline of projects is always in development. Establishing a credible pipeline of projects, supported by dedicated funding streams, gives certainty to the market and can create efficiencies in terms of delivery of an overall investment programme. Across both the public transport and roads programmes there are a large number of projects in earlier stages of development or emerging from the planning system. The most notable of these include BusConnects Dublin, where all 12 of the core bus corridors have now received planning permission, with the first of these corridors due to start construction later this year; DART+ West and DART+ South West, both of which have received planning permission, with DART+ Coastal North application lodged with An Bord Pleanála; the Donegal trans-European transport network, TEN-T, improvement scheme, a massive investment in Donegal’s road infrastructure, which has received Government approval at approval gate 1 and will be lodged by Donegal County Council with the board shortly; and MetroLink, where we expect a planning decision from the board in the coming months.

Further back in the development pipeline, we have BusConnects Cork, with its preliminary business case under review by the Department at the moment, while preliminary business cases are expected to be submitted by TII to us later this year in respect of the N24 Cahir to Limerick junction and the N4 Carrick-On-Shannon to Dromod schemes.

A wide range of investments is taking place in the Irish transport sector at a scale we have rarely seen previously. In transport, we have strong governance arrangements in place via our frameworks and our agencies which can, I hope, give this committee assurance on the oversight and management of these projects in line with international best practice. These investments present a unique opportunity for us to change the offering involved in the transport sector while helping to decarbonise the sector, facilitate continued economic and population growth, support the delivery of housing and, more broadly, offering strong value for money. I again thank the committee for the invitation. We look forward to engaging.