Professor Aisling Reynolds-Feighan:

As I said, rail has a role to play in high density corridors. However, the densities are limited to the Dublin area and possibly Cork. If one examines rail services more generally in the country, they require very substantial investments. If the rail carriages are not full, their environmental footprint is very unattractive. They are contributing to the carbon emissions and on a per passenger basis, because the ridership is low, that is quite substantial. The argument for rail as an environmentally friendly mode of transport requires that the rail is heavily used, and that requires that it is deployed in high density corridors. I believe there are very limited opportunities in an Irish context for deploying heavy rail services.