Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. I have a number of short questions about some of the subheads. The main one, which was touched on earlier by Deputy Connolly, relates to the environmental element of some of the programmes. An additional sum of €74 million was allocated in respect of and spent on heavy rail in 2015. At what point does Mr. Doyle think the Department and its agencies will start to seriously consider expenditure to electrify the entire network? That also includes the heavy rail carriages and locomotives. I appreciate that there is a national policy element to the question but it is within the strategy of the Government and previous Governments to do that. What sort of spend on a year-on-year basis has been invested in electrification and is there a significant programme of work to be undertaken before the roll-out of such an option for the national rail network?