Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the ongoing all-island strategic rail review with a view to making a submission on behalf of the committee to the Department. On behalf of the committee I welcome the representative of the Western Rail Trail, Mr. John Mulligan; from West on Track, Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh - I hope I pronounced his name correctly - and Mr. Peter Feeney, who is well known to us all; representing the Atlantic Economic Corridor Business Forum, Mr. Mike Devane; from the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership: Mr. Graham Lightfoot and Mr. Edward Kelly - Mr. Hassard Stacpoole has been delayed but he will join us at 12 noon; and Mr. Richard Logue, managing director of RL Consultancy Limited.

All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against a person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction. For witnesses attending remotely from outside the Leinster House campus, there are some limitations to parliamentary privilege and, as such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness who is physically present does. Witnesses participating in this committee session from a jurisdiction outside the State are advised that they should be mindful of domestic law and how it may apply to the evidence they give.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts of Leinster House will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I would ask any member partaking via MS Teams to confirm, prior to making his or her contribution to the meeting, that he or she is on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

Members and all those in attendance in the committee room are asked to exercise personal responsibility in protecting themselves and others from the risk of contracting Covid-19.

I call Mr. Mulligan to make his opening statement.

Mr. John Mulligan:

I represent the Western Rail Trail Alliance, an umbrella group that includes the Quiet Man Greenway campaign, the East Mayo Greenway group and the Sligo Greenway Co-Op. These three separate, but aligned, campaigns enjoy significant public support.

Collectively, we seek to have a greenway built on or alongside the various closed and disused rail lines that connect Athenry, County Galway with Collooney, County Sligo. Collooney is already a starting point for a cross-Border greenway project to develop a greenway from Sligo to Enniskillen, using parts of an old rail alignment and some private lands. The complete greenway from Enniskillen to Athenry, with a potential connection to the Great Western Greenway at the Turlough Park House museum, would create the longest greenway network in Ireland and would be a game changer for tourism, leisure and the quality of life needed to attract and retain remote workers in towns along the Atlantic economic corridor.

The committee will hear from rail lobbyists seeking to have a railway built on some or all of this alignment. We do not oppose this proposal although we recognise that it may not happen in whole or in part for several decades. This is a key point and we ask that the rail review take account of this reality. All recent reports on the viability of rail on this route have found against rail investment and we take a pragmatic view that if such investment is ever forthcoming, it is a long way into the future. In the meantime, while keeping rail as a priority, we seek to preserve the route with a greenway, not only to provide jobs and amenity now but also to stop further encroachment and loss of this asset to public ownership.

Costings around the Sligo greenway project showed the cost of building on the existing track bed to be approximately one third of the cost of building the greenway alongside the scrap line. Retaining a rusting and rotting line for future rail use makes no sense; we believe that the cheaper option of building a greenway on the track bed should be chosen now. In the event that a rail project is ever funded on the route, the greenway can at that time be relocated to the edge of the alignment as part of the rail construction project. This is the plan for the Sligo greenway, and the model is successful elsewhere with projects such as the Athlone to Mullingar, Waterford to Dungarvan and, indeed, Navan to Kingscourt greenways.

We spoke to Irish Rail on a number of occasions in this respect and it has no objection to the stone ballast being used as a base for a greenway, and it agrees that this is not in conflict with the primary use of the asset for rail in the future.

In summary, I will make these following few points. There is currently no viable railway in existence on the alignment from Athenry to Collooney; what is there is scrap and of no value in any future rail project. Retaining what is there has no bearing on any future use of the asset. The regional spatial economic strategies, RSES, support the interim use of the asset as a greenway, and this is clearly identified in the recent RSES for the west and north west. Our proposal and our aims are not in conflict with the aims of the rail lobby groups that seek to have a railway built on the route. In fact, we believe they complement them as a greenway will protect the route in public ownership in perpetuity, should a railway ever be feasible. There is also a potential future synergy between rail and greenway on the same alignment.

We recognise that the list of mooted rail projects in Ireland is a long one, and that routes where passenger numbers are far in excess of the most optimistic projections for the so-called western rail corridor will of necessity get priority within this list. Any rail project on this route is likely to happen well into the future and all we ask is that available funding is used now to preserve the alignment with a greenway in the interim. Report after report have firmly refuted any case for a railway but were delivered with political get-out clauses that suggested that this may change in the medium term. This political fudging and indecision helps nobody. We have been engaged in this debate for over a decade, and in that time the railway is no closer to being delivered. We ask that the all-Ireland rail review draw a line under this matter and decide whether all or part of this route will ever be used for rail, and if so, when. If rail is a viable option, build it and build a greenway alongside it. If it is not a viable option at this time, build the greenway and when rail makes sense, build a railway and relocate the greenway to run alongside it as is done successfully elsewhere.

We are asking for the all-island rail review to clearly state that the closed railway from Athenry to Collooney must be preserved in public ownership until such time as a railway is possible. We want the report to recommend the route be protected using international best practice of allowing the route to be converted to a greenway, with future rail use as a priority.

This is about asset management, leveraging a State-owned asset to provide jobs and amenity now, while protecting it for future rail or other transport use. I ask the committee to ensure that decisions that condemn towns along the route to no investment of any kind are not made yet again.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Mulligan and call Mr. Ó Raghallaigh.

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

West on Track is a community-based campaign advocating for the full restoration of the western rail corridor from Limerick to Sligo. It is made up of a large and diverse membership including many community groups, chambers of commerce and local development organisations and enjoys wide support from political representatives of all parties, both at local and national level.

The western rail corridor, WRC, is the term commonly used for the line from Limerick to Sligo but traditionally, it also includes the links to the Port of Foynes and the inland port of Ballina. It forms part of an Atlantic railway corridor that runs from Rosslare all the way to Sligo.

The case for the reopening of the WRC line to serve the west and north west includes the multiple social, tourism and business benefits which would accrue from its revival. The route links three city regions, as set out in the national planning framework, namely, Galway, Limerick and Cork, four major hub towns, that is, Ballina, Sligo, Castlebar, Tuam and Ennis, as well as connecting by rail the destination town of Westport, three international airports, three universities and four institute of technology campuses which have recently been rebranded as the Atlantic technological university. It also affords the possibility of further linking northwards to Letterkenny and Derry. By any standards, therefore, the western rail corridor constitutes critical economic infrastructure.

Regional policy objectives, RPOs, 6.13(a) and 6.13(b) of the regional spatial and economic strategy published by the Northern and Western Regional Assembly explicitly support the restoration of the WRC missing link from Athenry to Claremorris and from Claremorris to Sligo for passenger and freight use, recognising the strategic importance of the western rail corridor as a growth enabler for the region, and its potential to link the economies of large urban centres along the western seaboard. The strategy also recognises the potential of the WRC in consolidating the Atlantic economic corridor.

This is also the stated objective of the respective county development plans of Galway, Mayo and Sligo. In summary, there is now the potential for Westport, Ballina, Castlebar, Claremorris, Tuam and Sligo to have a passenger intercity and commuter rail link with the regional capital of Galway, and a direct rail-freight route to the southern ports of Cork and Waterford, the new Foynes Trans-European Transport Network, TEN-T, core port and the proposed new port facilities in Galway. The question now is whether Arup will recognise this potential or, indeed, be allowed to recognise it.

We are conscious that the social and economic future of large areas of Ireland may depend on the outcome of the work Arup is now doing and we wish it well in its endeavours. Arup now has the opportunity to restore public confidence in such consultation processes.

In January 2021, the EU declared that the Northern and Western Region had regressed from "Developed Region" to "Region in Transition" status. Amongst the key reasons for this decline is the lack of investment in the region's railway infrastructure on a north-south axis, resulting in the absence of modern rail transport and sustainable access to our ports. We believe it imperative that the all-island rail review would directly address this regression by strongly recommending the redevelopment of railways, including existing unused lines, in the northern and western nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, NUTS, 2 region.

The rail review should also consider the application by the then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross, to the European Commission, dated 9 August 2019, in which he stated "Ireland believes that there is a need to amend the TEN-T Regulation and requests that the European Commission considers the existing requirements for the Ten-T Core Network with a view to including the Atlantic seaboard region of Ireland on the Ten-T Core Network". Despite a positive response to the Department from the EU on 10 October of that year, the recently published draft TEN-T revision shows no such change. Instead, it is clear the only addition by Ireland is the inclusion of the multibillion DART project for Dublin.

The consultation paper for the all-island rail review, dated November 2021, sets out the ambition for the review as follows: "This Review will consider how the rail network on the island of Ireland can improve to promote sustainable connectivity into, and between, the major cities, enhance regional accessibility and support balanced regional development ... and look at how the railways are used, how they could be used in future and how the network can evolve to serve the people on the island of Ireland". This declaration is, of course, entirely commendable but it remains to be seen whether the all-island review will deliver the radical and ambitious plan that is needed for every part of Ireland. We are sure members will agree that in the context of developing genuine strategies for dealing with carbon emissions, Ireland must urgently recognise the enormous value of all its existing rail assets and, in particular, its strategic rail corridors. It is imperative that, from now on, such rail assets are fully protected for future rail development and not given up for any other purposes whatsoever. Ripping up railways is not a way of protecting them.

In 2021, following the publication by the Department of Transport of a report by EY, West on Track commissioned an independent economic appraisal of the Galway-Mayo rail link by an economist, Dr. John Bradley. A copy of that report, together with a summary of its findings, was sent to the members of this committee last June. Its key finding was:

A cost benefit analysis of reactivating Phases 2 & 3 of the Western Rail Corridor (WRC) yields a positive net present value (NPV) and benefit-to-cost ratio of >1.0. When additional non-monetised benefits of a project appraisal are considered, a strong business case exists to carry out the project.

A copy of Dr Bradley's report has been sent to Arup as part of our submission. We believe his conclusions would be affirmed by any serious independent review.

Both An Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, are on record as supporting the redevelopment of the western rail corridor Speaking in Dáil Éireann on 24 September 2020, the Minister said:

Developing those two small links [from Athenry to Claremorris and from Limerick city to Foynes] would give us a national rail freight service connected to two international deepwater ports. I would go to Europe with that proposal. I would take it to the EU's climate action recovery fund and say that this proposal makes economic sense. This is a region with clean power, clean water, manufacturing expertise and two deep-sea ports that can be connected by rail freight. I do not see why it cannot work.

Speaking during the launch of the revised national development plan, NDP, in Cork on Monday, 4 October 2021, An Taoiseach stated that the Government would "enthusiastically" support expenditure on the western rail corridor going forward. He said: "I think you can be assured the Minister for Public Expenditure [and Reform] will support the Western Rail Corridor very enthusiastically". We now look forward to seeing these unequivocal declarations of support reflected in the findings by Arup.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Ó Raghallaigh. I now call Mr. Logue to give his opening statement.

Mr. Richard Logue:

I welcome the chance to speak to the committee. Thanks to the extensive network cuts of the 1950s and 1960s, large parts of Ireland are entirely without a railway service. The western half of Ulster, including Donegal and Tyrone, and much of west Cork have not had a railway service in more than 60 years. Other areas have a very infrequent timetable. Experience shows, however, particularly on the Belfast-Derry line, that if a better service is offered, passengers will use it. That particular line was under threat of closure in 2004 due to low passenger numbers. It had an infrequent timetable and the trains on the line were dilapidated. Following a major campaign to save the line, led by Eamonn McCann, Jim McBride and the late Colm Joyce, it was saved. The investments subsequently made to date in new trains and better track on the Belfast-Derry line have produced a sixfold increase since 2004 in passenger numbers of up to more than 3 million annually. This increase has far exceeded the conservative forecasts NI Railways made in its initial investment plan.

There are a number of quick wins we could apply to improve the existing rail service. The railway needs to run on all lines from early in the morning until late at night and, in some cases, all through the night. Intercity passengers should expect to be able to arrive at any destination across the island before 9 a.m. Timetables need to be designed for 21st century needs, ensuring there is a train service available when passengers need it. Journey times must be quicker than their equivalent by car. The existing rail network must be updated to allow higher speed running on all existing lines, up to 125 mph, and all speed restrictions need to be eliminated. Ideally, all tracks should be double, but more and longer passing loops would significantly ease current restrictions on single-track sections. Understandably, this will require significant investment. A change that requires less investment is ensuring bus and railway timetables are aligned such that bus services connect with railways to allow seamless transfers. It is worth pointing out that the modal shift from private cars to public transport will not happen if bus-only public transport is offered. Buses must complement the rail service, not wastefully compete with it.

There also is a need to link the railway to the runways. Despite being the busiest entry point to the island of Ireland, Dublin Airport has no railway connections and is entirely dependent on the road network. If we compare Dublin with Manchester, which has a similar-sized airport to Dublin, Manchester has both a tram or light rail link to central Manchester and an intercity heavy rail station taking passengers from all over England to the airport. A similar heavy rail connection at Dublin Airport, branching off from the Dublin-Belfast line and going towards the city centre, would not only allow intercity trains from all over Ireland to serve the airport but also would have to resolve the notorious bottleneck on the railway between Malahide and Connolly, where intercity trains must travel slowly behind the frequent DART services, causing significant delays.

The DART tunnel is regarded by many as the key to unlocking Dublin's rail network. The DART underground line would link Dublin city's badly connected railways into a coherent network. Not building it or putting it even further on the long finger does not make any sense. The route linking the Belfast and Cork lines is already part of the EU's TEN-T core network. Putting the tunnel in place and linking it into the network would allow for a reconfiguration of DART routes, allowing new Malahide-Kildare services, for instance, or Kilcock-Greystones services.

The mothballed Atlantic rail corridor, also known as the western rail corridor, is one of the most strategic links on the island of Ireland as it offers the most direct rail link possible between the west and the north west and allows for a direct connection to the increasingly important southern ports of Rosslare, Waterford, Cork and Foynes. The corridor should be used as the basis for a major railway linking the island, including Shannon and Knock airports, and would be the second major cross-Border railway on the island. A further new line linking Sligo to Derry via Donegal town and Letterkenny would add immense benefits, particularly for the north west. The Atlantic rail corridor is a strategic route for the whole island and must be designated as part of the TEN-T core network.

I turn now to organisational issues. From an organisational point of view, the National Transport Authority, NTA, only has a statutory role for the greater Dublin area. Furthermore, my understanding is the authority does not currently have anyone at board or executive leadership level with rail expertise. There would be a massive benefit if it were to bring somebody on board with that experience. The railway services that start and finish outside Dublin should be managed by a dedicated regional railways undertaking, with a specific remit to develop services and increase passenger traffic.

Finally, the reason that I am putting this forward is not about the trains. The reality is that we are facing an increased growth in the population of Ireland over the next 20 years. Do we continue as we are, and cram more and more people into the greater Dublin area, or do we take the opportunity now to rebalance Ireland to allow that population growth to be absorbed across the country? Providing a comprehensive and electrified passenger rail network provides a backbone of infrastructure that allows businesses to be based away from Dublin. We have the chance to develop Ireland in a balanced way, to resolve dereliction in our towns and to give our citizens a place to live with a good quality of life over the next 20 years. Let us take that opportunity.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

My name is Graham Lightfoot. I am representing the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership, NTCRP, which thanks the Chairman and the committee for inviting us to talk about our submission to the all-Ireland Rail Review. As the Chairman knows, the issues we raise have been highlighted here a number of times, most recently when the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, appeared before the committee on 26 January 2022 and when Iarnród Éireann CEO, Jim Meade, appeared on 17 February 2022.

The partnership has quarterly meetings with Iarnród Éireann management to promote the line, secure improvements in services and to provide in-depth feedback to Iarnród Éireann from users and potential users. We also engage with the National Transport Authority and local authorities. The rail review gives us an opportunity to highlight several issues, including our particular concern that there is no policy for the development of rural or regional railways at Department level or within the NTA or Iarnród Éireann. Iarnród Éireann Strategy 2027 makes no commitments to improve regional rural services, except for improving services in the four metropolitan areas of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. The NTA's remit does not currently include developing regional, rural or intercity rail, even though it is responsible for the public service obligation, PSO, contract, allocating PSO funds and approving the timetable. Iarnród Éireann's own position in developing services is outlined in an email we received from local management telling us that it is not within its remit, but up to the NTA via the PSO contract, to determine the timetable. It could propose an additional service for the NTA, for approval but it does not currently have the resources for this. Both Iarnród Éireann and the NTA describe our line as "lightly used". This unfortunate tag is due to the lack of useful journey opportunities making it irrelevant and largely unusable to the population it serves; the failure by Iarnród Éireann's railway undertaking, RU, to promote the line to these communities; and the failure of the NTA to challenge the railway undertaking to improve the level of services being operated to meet local needs. All other routes operated by Iarnród Éireann have seen services upgraded from the traditional two trains a day to either an hourly or, at worst, three-hourly off-peak service, with an almost hourly service at peak times. The sole exceptions are the north and south Tipperary lines, which maintain a very basic service. The timetable has essentially not changed since the restoration of full services after the emergency and fuel crises of 1947. The only change has been the loss of direct services to Dublin, since 1986. Except for a brief period in 2012 and 2013, all passengers must change at Ballybrophy to access stations on the line. The line suffers from a lack of consistent and reliable services. There are currently 31 passenger trains a week, or 1,567 a year. However, in each of the two years before Covid, over 200 services were replaced with buses, the equivalent of seven weeks of services. Due to Covid, there were significant periods when there was no service on the line; for example,162 days from January to June 2021.

When driver shortages occur, our line's services are the first to be replaced by buses. This creates a perception that the line is closed or unreliable and is not helped by the fact that none of the stations on the line have real-time information on display to update passengers. In the ten-year period from 2011 to 2020, Iarnród Éireann invested €22.8 million on improvements, with a further €22.7 million spent on day-to-day maintenance, resulting in a total infrastructure funding of €45.5 million. There has been no significant improvement of services in terms of faster journeys or more train services. There are no rail services from Limerick to Ballybrophy between 6.30 a.m. and 4.55 p.m., and from Ballybrophy to Limerick between 10.05 a.m. and 5.05 p.m. There are no services on Sunday mornings or at all on the Sundays of bank holiday weekends.

As of today, 24 miles of the line has been upgraded with continuous welded rail, CWR, but it still has a temporary speed restriction of 30 miles per hour. We would like the committee to note that Iarnród Éireann's own CCE-TMS-321 track maintenance requirements and tolerances standards allow a maximum speed of 70 miles per hour on lines like the Limerick to Ballybrophy line, but Iarnród Éireann has said that it will not look at a speed limit higher than 50 miles per hour. Raising line speeds could result in a large reduction of journey times. For example, it takes an average of 48 minutes to cover 24 miles of CWR at 30 miles per hour. At 50 miles per hour, it would take 28 minutes and 48 seconds, a potential reduction of 19 minutes 12 seconds. It is only after persistent challenges by the campaign that Iarnród Éireann’s infrastructure manager agreed to review the line speeds for the new timetable due out later this year. The proliferation of level crossings on the route impacts significantly on line speeds, with 12 being legacy gated crossings that require a gatekeeper to operate them, at a cost of approximately €1.2 million per annum. There is no programme or funding in place to convert attended crossings to automatic crossings or to abolish farmers' crossings through land swaps or buying out rights of way. We would like to see further funding made available to allow this to happen as this would improve safety, allow better journey times and significantly reduce the operational and wage costs attributed to the line and allow it to be available to traffic 24-7.

On a typical weekday the line requires 68 people to operate two and a half return services a day. We believe that with these fixed costs, the line should be offering more services. Running more passenger or freight services will be a marginal cost, as the farebox should have the potential to cover the cost of operating more services without the need for any significant adjustment to the PSO. Our first goal is to make the line user-friendly and relevant to the population it serves by the introduction of a third return service, seven days a week, utilising the existing available rolling stock allocated to the line. This additional service will help significantly increase choice and journey opportunities for passengers, and should result in greater usage and greater farebox revenue. We note that the Minister for Transport told this committee on 26 January 2022 that there is a need to invest in the line and that strategic use needs to be made of the line. He stated:

Do we let them just chug along at bare minimum use or do we want to make strategic use of them? I think we should make strategic use of them. I think we should build new stations along that line.

The line should be part of the vision for commuter rail into Limerick, with the delivery of an hourly service from Nenagh to Limerick. This would serve the proposed Ballysimon Parkway station and the reopened station of Annacotty. Annacotty could then serve the university and local industrial estates and be integrated with the M7 park and ride bus station, as proposed in the Limerick Shannon Metropolitan Area Transportation Strategy.

Integrating timetables and ticketing between rail and bus services would expand the catchment area of stations along the line in counties Tipperary, Clare, Offaly and Limerick, allowing flexibility and encouraging a modal shift from the car to public transport. For example, we would like users of the Nenagh commuter service to access the later Bus Éireann 323 or 72 service back to Nenagh after the last train has gone. It is key that bus services call at the railway stations to connect with train services. The responsibility for promoting and co-ordinating local bus services with rural and regional rail should be mandated to the Local Link co-ordination units where appropriate. In order to ensure effective connectivity, Leap Card use should be extended to all rail and bus services throughout the country.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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We will move to questions from members. For the information of non-members, the collective decision of the committee is that order for questioning is as follows: members, non-members who are substituting for current members, and Oireachtas Members who are not members of the committee.

I will allow an opportunity first to the committee members who are present and will then go to those who are substituting for members who are not present. All other Members of the Houses who are present will be accommodated thereafter. I call Deputy Matthews.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I welcome all our guests to the meeting and thank them for their submissions. They have considerable experience of railways and lobbying for railways. They want to see railways upgraded and restored throughout the county. I am also conscious we have with us representatives from the Great Western Greenway.

I particularly compliment the submission of the delegation from north Tipperary. It was well researched and got down to the nuts and bolts of what it is to try to run a rail line in terms of costs and staffing measures. It suggested some deliverable objectives that could bring that line into greater use.

As I am sure our guests and many other railway enthusiasts and people with an interest in railways do, I sometimes look at the 1908 Vice Regal Commission map of Ireland and its light rails and railways. It shows what a proliferation of railways we had, serving all our communities. I am realistic enough to know we can never replicate that situation. What damaged the railways in the regions most was the advent of motorised vehicles, including motor cars. For approximately 60 years thereafter, we planned everything around the car. We now have dispersed settlement, which makes it quite difficult to run public transport services to serve those dispersed communities.

If we are to be realistic and want to invest millions or billions in our railways, we need to match that with proper planning. We need compact growth. We need to pick one or two towns along each rail line in which we will have compact growth. The people in those communities must be willing to accept the zonings and densities required to allow for the efficient running of the railways. The backbone of a railway is constant, measurable commuting traffic. Tourism alone is not enough to support a rail line but tourism can follow when a rail line supports itself. Along the rail lines in the areas our guests represent, are the communities willing to accept higher density growth within their towns and those parts of the planning system that communities do not take to too quickly? I invite Mr. Logue to answer that first.

There is another group I feel should have been represented at this meeting and I take responsibility for not suggesting we extend an invitation to it. South East on Track has done tremendous work. That area is an important part of the arc we are talking about from Sligo to Wexford.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As Chair, I made it clear I wanted utter inclusion and did a lot of work to try to ensure it. I strongly suggest we write to the group the Deputy has mentioned and request written submissions.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I thank the Chair. I had meant to suggest we include South East on Track but it completely slipped my mind at the time. I appreciate the Chair's suggestion.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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We are only human. That can happen.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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Thank you, Chair. Perhaps Mr. Logue will respond to my questions. Transport-orientated development is what I am talking about.

Mr. Richard Logue:

I thank the Deputy. One of the most obvious candidates at this stage is probably somewhere such as Letterkenny. It is a part of the north-western city region that has been established between Letterkenny, Derry and Strabane. I attended a webinar yesterday that was hosted by Derry City and Strabane District Council. The council very much sees Letterkenny as a core part of the area. As we all know, the current public transport arrangements within Letterkenny and Derry are somewhat sparse. I was forwarded the current bus timetable this morning by my brother, who lives in Donegal, and it is insufficient to drive a modal shift. However, Letterkenny is expanding significantly. We are looking to establish a university there on the back of the existing Letterkenny regional college. There is a lot of support from Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce. I met the president of the chamber online last year on this issue. Letterkenny would be like pushing an open door when we consider where to start development. We realise that railway lines cannot be put everywhere because that is impossible but Letterkenny would be a good place to start.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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We could even use the existing lines. I believe we should sweat the assets we have rather than aiming for the very long term. To build a greenfield railway takes a long time, a lot of investment and massive planning. We have lines in place already, including, for example, the Nenagh branch we are talking about. We need to sweat those assets. We need compact growth in those towns and along those lines. That is where we should concentrate.

Mr. Richard Logue:

I agree with the Deputy. If the Limerick line was managed in a better way, there would be potential for a shorter direct route between Dublin and Limerick. A continuously welded rail line in that area would mean the potential for running trains at a significantly higher speed. The major blockers on that line are primarily things such as the multiple accommodation crossings and the multiple manual level crossings. If one is looking at developing, Nenagh, for instance, is suitable for major development. From an intercity point of view, it would provide for a shorter direct journey between Dublin and Limerick but a curve would have to be built at Ballybrophy to accommodate direct trains. No such curve exists at the moment.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

This is also a rural development issue in terms of enabling the towns along the line and the wider catchment area of towns near the line to increase the possibilities for increased services, increases in passenger numbers and so on. That is why we have worked with the local authorities in areas the line goes through or near. We have also worked with public representations like the committee members. It is quite important to make that link between the operation of a train service and the development of the rural areas through which that train service passes.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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In my remaining time, I will make the comment that I think there need to be much closer working ties between the Department of Transport and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I do not think transport and planning can be done separately even though we have done that for many years. That approach has failed. We have an opportunity now. I have never seen so much enthusiasm across the Oireachtas for investment in railways as I have seen in the past two years. I hope that continues.

Mr. Peter Feeney:

In response to a question the Deputy asked, there is a very interesting case study in Oranmore. The station at Oranmore was built under phase one of the western rail corridor and there was no station in Oranmore until then. It is at somewhat of a remove from the village but is now well connected. It now has 60,000 users a year. Its car park is no longer able to take the number of cars that require parking. The area is the focal point for a new suburb of Garraun, which will be built by Galway County Council. That will link to Ardaun and the industrial estates at Parkmore, where we have all our medical technology companies. We built the station in Oranmore. We built it and they came. The people use it.

The next step is to Tuam, which is the biggest town in the county but is not connected by rail to the western rail corridor. It is a large industrial base that was recently bypassed. It has a big population and is the capital of north Galway. Irish Rail has a substantial land bank in the centre of the town. Everything needs to be working together and every synergy must be capitalised upon to deliver what would be an important piece of public transport infrastructure.

Mr. John Mulligan:

Mr. Logue has made very good points about the amount of work that needs to be done on the rail network and the sheer volume of improvements required. The Sligo to Dublin line has an average running speed of 40 mph. That is Third World stuff. The economic corridor for the north west at the moment is that Sligo to Dublin link. We need a railway on that route. We need that to be done. While recognising the value in what the representatives of West on Track have said about linking Sligo with Galway, the reality is there is a huge stack-up of work to be done before that happens. All we are saying is that in the interim, that route should be preserved with the greenway.

Green transport is also transport. Short commuting with electric bikes, or whatever, is popular and growing. If one can put the greenway into all of those towns, one can facilitate commuting off the road.

My final point is that the section of that line north of Claremorris, between Claremorris and Sligo, where again somebody referred to the number of crossings on the line, has 400 such crossings on it, . It was known as the Burma Road because of the slow rate of trains on it. I humbly suggest to West on Track that, with the improvement of the N17, they would also look to incorporating a direct rail alignment in that to cut out all of those crossings. If one looks at somewhere like Athens to Corinth rail route, where it was a similar type of slow and twisting railway, they built a motorway and railway beside it and just abandoned the railway. It has created a proper commuting service compared to what was there. I do not want to be seen to knock the notion of the western rail corridor. It will be grand when we get it, if we get it, but in the meantime all I am saying is to ask all of the Deputies here to please make a decision and not to leave this as a can to be kicked down the road for another 40 years because we are just sick of all of that dereliction.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I thank Mr. Mulligan and the Chairman.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I now call Senator Horkan to speak please and he has seven minutes.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and I thank all of our witnesses for their opening statements. I am conscious and I believe that I am right in saying that they are all volunteers in what they are doing. They are not being paid to be here and are doing it out of part of their involvement with their community. It is great to see that. While I am a Senator living and born in Dublin, I have a constituency comprised of councillors from every part of Ireland including the Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Mayo and Tipperary areas. I have three west of Ireland grandparents, two from Mayo and one from Roscommon. I would be very familiar with much of the area that we are talking about and the territory involved.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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This would be the area of the former Taoiseach, Charlie Haughey.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and that is praise indeed. I should stop now as it is all downhill from here.

Again, as a person who has sat on school boards for 18 years and I am still on one, and have looked at numbers where we had 200 to 300 people applying for 90 places, Dublin is oversubscribed. My grandfather came from Mayo to Dublin. Eight of his siblings went to America. The reality is that we need a better regional balance. I believe that we are the only country in Europe now that has a population that is lower than it was 200 years ago.

We must have a better regional balance and the railways can play their part in that. I completely agree, however, with Deputy Matthews on the idea of compact growth and planning growth along the lines because if one goes to places like Hungary or a place in central Europe, the reason one can have trains every ten or 15 minutes is because when one goes outside of those train stations, there are a great many apartment blocks of ten to 15 storeys. I am not suggesting that we put ten or 15 storey blocks in Ballybrophy or anywhere else but a railway line needs volume.

Perhaps Mr. Logue may contradict me if he wants to or agree with me if he likes, but it is about volume because the fixed costs are high and the extra revenue and passengers are needed once the railway line is running. It surprises me a little bit to realise that it takes 68 people to run a service that only has two trips a day. It seems like a tremendous amount of effort for such a small return with all of these people having to do these jobs. One would have to have the volumes there for the service.

To echo again the points made by Deputy Matthews, when we moved from trains to cars back in the day, that was seen as progress at the time. Realistically, however, I live close enough to Leinster House - I did not do this today because it was lashing rain and I have to go to a few other places – but by and large, I will cycle rather than drive if I can. The challenge we have is that if I want to get a train to Limerick or Cork, I have to get to Heuston Station, go from there to Limerick, from Limerick city to wherever I am going and I can jump in the car. The motorway network, which is fantastic, has made the competition for rail all the greater as the road system has raised its game and has made rail relatively less attractive. If the roads were worse, rail would be more attractive, and so on. Rail has to up its game now in going from the 30 miles per hour to 50 miles per hour and to faster speeds.

I wish to ask Mr. Logue a question, because he is not looking specifically at one area, and then I will bring in some of the regional groups. On the connection to the airport - we know that the metro is going to be a while away - but bearing in mind Ireland's infrastructure issues, planning processes and so forth, how quickly does Mr. Logue think that a Dublin Airport heavy rail link might be established and at what cost?

Mr. Richard Logue:

Irish Rail did an estimate going back some years and it reckoned at the time that it would cost around €200 million to build a double-track branch from Clongriffin across to the airport. One also has to consider that at the moment one has got just a two-track railway down from Malahide to Connolly. One would need to build two further tracks to be able to incorporate additional trains. I am actually surprised that the DART coastal consultation does not include additional capacity on that route because that route is already beyond capacity, where one has Enterprise and Tara Mines trains crawling behind the regular DART trains. Irish Rail back then estimated that the cost would be around €200 million-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Is that just to Malahide?

Mr. Richard Logue:

That was from Connolly Station to the airport, including the extra tracks.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Yes, okay.

Mr. Richard Logue:

Off the top of the head, I believe those estimates were made ten years ago. If one had been realistic, I will give the Senator a ballpark figure now, which is a cost of around €350 million to €500 million, which would still be a great deal cheaper than building additional roads. What people do not realise is that the construction cost of railway is cheaper than road but, as Senator Horkan has rightly said, one needs to have the volume. Dublin Airport has the volume for that, in addition to MetroLink. It is not a case of either-or nor should it be because the National Transport Authority chose its preferred route for MetroLink in the context of the Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area 2016 – 2035.

I am talking in the context of a national strategy. I actually arrived at the airport this morning from London, where I am based, and managed to get a train down but I took a local bus through Swords and Malahide to see for myself what the traffic is like down there. There is a great deal of traffic and it took me 45 minutes to get from the airport to Malahide Station. It took me 35 minutes to get to Pearse Station from Malahide, which I thought was pretty decent. We need to also look at the airport in the context of the national connections. One would also then have resolved a significant bottleneck on the existing railway which would give a benefit beyond the narrow benefit of getting trains to the airport.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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What would the timeline be?

Mr. Richard Logue:

I was on the Thameslink project in London before joining my current project, where we built a major upgrade to that railway. If one had a fair wind and had the financial support from the Oireachtas to build it, one would be looking at two to three years to have it built, in place and to have that ready. It is not just-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Could one have the line built in two to three years?

Mr. Richard Logue:

One could have the line built in two to three years but one would need to get a number of things in place. One would need to have the-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Railway orders and all that type of thing-----

Mr. Richard Logue:

As we know with MetroLink, that has been an issue in itself. The longest part in any of these projects is always going to be the preliminaries and getting those ready and in place. Once one has got to the construction phase, paradoxically like in many projects, the construction phase is often a great deal quicker than the planning.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Drawing on Mr. Logue’s own expertise, has he any idea of the time in that planning phase, as I am aware that people will object with all that that involves? Is it two or four years, six months, or what is it?

Mr. Richard Logue:

I will be honest as I have been monitoring the whole situation with MetroLink and I shake my head in disbelief at how long the whole process is taking. One would expect, if one had an uncontentious application and it was going through the normal planning process - the railway order as we know is a separate planning process from the normal planning process for local authorities, An Bord Pleanála etc. - it should take two to three years because one still has to produce a cost, get approval, raise funding from EU or other sources and all of that takes time. One has to build a business case and to make a feasibility study, so one could be allowing for a further two to three years. I know that my friend and colleague, Mr. Hassard Stacpoole, is on the call as well and I ask him to feel free if he wants to jump in to answer this question also. I estimate that it would be a timescale of around about five years if the decision was made to go ahead.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Logue is saying, therefore, that one could have a railway line from Dublin Airport to Connolly in five to six years' time which would be significantly ahead of the metro.

That would complement metro, not be a replacement for it.

Mr. Richard Logue:

I have seen a lot of the social media chatter about railway versus metro. The two absolutely complement each other. If one looks at the situation in Manchester, which is a comparable airport-----

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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There is also Brussels, Paris and loads of places.

Mr. Richard Logue:

Indeed. I particularly chose Manchester because it is a good comparison where one can have the best of both. There is the local public transport connection with the light rail service, ironically, the Manchester Metrolink, and the intercity rail network, which plugs Manchester Airport into the major cities and towns across the north of England. To my mind, that is a win-win situation. The only thing restricting us in this case is the political will and, obviously, the budgets to be able to fund all this.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Logue. I am conscious of the time.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is opportune that Mr. Stacpoole has joined us. He was delayed. Mr. Stacpoole, do you wish to add to Mr. Logue's comments?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

Mr. Logue is correct in the assessment. The great obstacle is the planning process, which was raised in this committee by the chief executive officer of Irish Rail and Mr. Peter Muldoon, who is head of new works. The planning process is the greatest obstacle. In terms of actual delivery, there is a two-year to three-year construction period. The key advantage of plugging in the airport is that one connects it into the whole network. It means one can run trains from Limerick into the airport, potentially. With the Shannon rail link, which we are discussing as well and which has been discussed in this committee, it makes rail more attractive and connected into the whole network. One is not just serving the hinterland of the airport but the whole country.

Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge the work of all the regional groups. If I get a chance to speak again I will have some points to make, but I am conscious of the time.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Thank you for your patience, Senator Horkan. I call Deputy Lowry.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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I welcome our guests today and thank them for their informative and interesting presentations. One cannot but be struck by their commitment to rail and the contribution it can make to travel in Ireland. I especially welcome the representatives of the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership. I work with them and I understand where they are coming from. Were it not for their efforts, which have been magnificent in recent years, we would not have a rail line open between Ballybrophy and Limerick. The Minister has said he is committed to that rail line. He has been very forthright in his policy initiatives in terms of bringing rail on line and making rail more accessible to more people. We can only do that by investment. I am surprised to see Iarnród Éireann's strategy to 2027 making no commitment to improve regional rural services, and from comments heard from the National Transport Authority, NTA, it appears that both of those organisations are out of step with the Minister. It is important they catch up and realise that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve our rail network. The Minister and the Government are committed. In the history of our country we have never designated so much funding for the improvement of our rail network. We must take advantage of that now.

The Limerick to Ballybrophy line is a serious problem. We have made progress but it has been very slow and meagre. There is a lack of frequency in the service on the line. There is a poor timetable which is not aligned for work times. There are painstakingly slow speeds on the line. Motorised cycles would actually travel faster than the trains on that line. The carriages are old and the comfort leaves a lot to be desired. In my view, people will travel on rail lines if the timetable and frequency are available. Nenagh to Ballybrophy is a typical example. I live in Thurles, which has a fantastic rail service on the Cork-Dublin line. Every week, hundreds of people travel a very bad road from Nenagh to Thurles to avail of the timetables from Thurles. There is a need there. People are looking for a service. If they are provided with a service, they will use it. Iarnród Éireann says it is lightly used. Of course, it is lightly used. That is because of its neglect of the line for so many years. If we invest, we will get a return. As well as getting a return, it will also improve and enhance rural communities. It will bring people into rural communities to live and to work. It should be part of our regional development plan. It removes cars from the roads, avoids pollution and, above all, it avoids huge delays entering our towns and cities.

I would like to hear more from the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership about the commuter service it is proposing between Nenagh and Limerick. This is very much needed. Limerick is a university city and Nenagh is effectively a satellite town. A massive number of people are moving between the two areas. On the outskirts of Limerick there is a big catchment in the areas that have been pointed out. Chairman, I will be proposing and encouraging my colleagues on this committee to have a submission on behalf of this rail line included in our report to the Department and the Minister. I hope to see the inclusion of a request for funding in the 2023 public service obligation, PSO, budget for additional services on the line.

I wish to make another comment. We have an issue with our crossings. The only way to improve the speeds is to improve the line and then to remove as many of the crossings as possible. They slow down the transit of the train. With regard to farm crossings, the committee should request the various county managers to give priority to these planning applications. I am dealing with a number of farm crossings and it is very slow and difficult. There is too much bureaucracy involved in getting permission for Iarnród Éireann to install an undercrossing to assist farmers with their animals.

The contributions that have been made at this meeting are excellent. I firmly believe we are way behind when it comes to connectivity from Dublin Airport to the city. As has been pointed out, we need to catch up. I will give the rest of my time to the representatives of the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership if they wish to respond or, perhaps, prioritise what their requests are for the current year.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

Mr. Stacpoole will deal with the question about priorities.

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

The ultimate problem we have is a chicken-and-egg situation; it is how we procure and run regional and rural rail lines. The fundamental problem is the NTA, which is responsible for the PSO, does not have a statutory role in the development of either regional or intercity railways. However, it is in charge of the PSO. Likewise, Irish Rail says it will not put on services unless there is a PSO or there is a demand. It is a chicken-and-egg thing. The problem we have with the north Tipperary line, as mentioned in our opening statement, is that the services have not changed for 75 years. We run two trains per day, one in the morning and one in the evening. In recent years, as the railways modernised, the line, which used to be the main route into Limerick, was not modernised.

For railway management and how Irish Rail runs the Limerick area, the priorities are the intercity service to Dublin via Limerick Junction, Limerick to Ennis and, perhaps by extension, the services to Galway.

There is a fundamental disconnect. We need somebody there to put key performance indicators, KPIs, in place. The first starting point is the upgrade of the track, to which we alluded in our opening statement, and that is part of our campaign. Getting that speed up would cut journey times and increase efficiency as it would allow the trains to run quicker and produce shorter journeys. The existing train that operates on the line sits idly in Limerick for the best part of six or seven hours a day, so providing a service in the middle of the day is the starting point here. Irish Rail will have an issue with that because it will say it needs to be funded and the PSO must be increased. The Minister has indicated it could be a matter for the NTA. Again, it is a chicken-and-egg thing. We are waiting for a reply from the NTA to Deputy Kelly, who asked whether it would increase the PSO. Deputy Lowry has also asked the NTA to do that. We need to get that funding in place but, fundamentally, you cannot run a train service without drivers and the procurement of drivers is an issue. We need Irish Rail to put together a programme, particularly in Limerick, to provide consistency of service, because we do not have consistency even as it is with two trains a day, but also to put drivers in place to operate that service going forward.

Going back to the NTA, the other issue is that the Limerick-Shannon metropolitan strategy stops at the County Limerick border. It does not actually look at the railway lines. As the Chairman knows, we have had to go back to the NTA and ask it to look again at the proposals for rail. In theory, when looking at rail in the Limerick context, we should be looking at Limerick to Nenagh, because Nenagh into Limerick is one market. There is then a second market that consists of intercity traffic to Dublin and people commuting from the county town, which is Tipperary town, to places like Dublin. That is an issue. If that funding is provided, as new rolling stock comes on as a result of the DART+ programme and diesel rail cars are displaced, we would like a minimum of a two-hourly service put on the line and an hourly service into Limerick at peak.

One of the fundamental issues with line speeds is the crossings. We have 12 manned crossings, which come with a high operational cost. We would like a programme to be funded to get rid of them, which would ultimately cut the operating cost by a significant amount. More important, it would give 24-7 flexibility, whereas we are currently reliant on the gatekeepers to operate the shifts. The other big issue is farmer crossings. We need a programme to allow farmers to farm their land safely while also allowing the railway to operate safely, because on a modern railway we want faster journeys. No funding has been allocated for that. This is the only line in the country that does not have a programme to get rid of farmer crossings. Some of the user crossings are being upgraded at the moment with the modern system Irish Rail is installing. Deputy Calleary will be aware there is a big local issue in Mayo with farmer and user crossings, but that railway runs at 70 or 80 mph and the north Tipperary line should be no different.

We need responsibility to be taken, not only by the NTA in how it procures regional and rural railways but also by the Department of Transport so the sector has the ability to implement this. It fundamentally comes down to the two authorities that procure rail services to instruct the railway company to deliver it. They do not have in-house railway expertise. They are reliant on consultants and they do not understand how rural and regional railways should and can operate for the benefit of the whole country. It is not just about connecting the radial lines into Dublin. We have a great opportunity with the regional rail review to connect communities. People in Nenagh, Cloughjordan or Roscrea should be able to hop on a train and go into Limerick, go on to Galway via Ennis or go seamlessly to Waterford via Clonmel or down to Cork. It should go beyond just going to Dublin.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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Mr. Stacpoole has outlined the priorities and the need for this. We will take that up with the Minister and the NTA in due course.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the speakers and welcome the delegations. It has been an interesting forum. All the rail reviews to date seem to have been based on demand. However, the Irish ways of measuring demand have been proven to be flawed by the cases mentioned here today. Mr. Logue mentioned the Derry line. He described the forecasts for the Belfast-Derry line as conservative, which was quite diplomatic. Mr. Feeney also spoke about what is happening with the Oranmore service. How reliable are these forecasts? How do the Irish forecasting models for rail usage and passengers numbers compare with other international systems?

My second question relates to the whole area of service. The review will more than likely make conclusions based on demand, as all reviews have to date, which brings us back to my first question. The witnesses from Tipperary have explained very well the lack of service, consistency and comfort of a rail service that is to all intents and purposes operating on timetables from the foundation of the State and even before that. Have other rail systems changed their timetabling beyond recognition to better reflect modern consumer demand, modern work pressures and the education pressures Deputy Lowry referred to? Is the Irish rail system, on both sides of the Border, stuck in a time warp or is it similar to other systems internationally?

The western rail corridor is crucial to the Atlantic economic corridor. An all-island rail review, which Mr. Logue put in context, would look at the Atlantic economic corridor. That seems to have slipped down the priority list of this Government. I am referring to the corridor from Derry to Cork. For that to be successful, it needs a cohesive rail line and service. I welcome Mr. Mulligan's reiteration that these two services can operate alongside each other. My worry is that if we proceed with the greenway, as proposed by Mr. Mulligan, we will never see the rail line. The greenway will be used as an excuse. There is nothing to prevent a greenway being developed alongside the existing rail service. We should still pursue the creation of a rail line and an all-island Atlantic economic corridor in the context of the all-island rail review. Rail demand and rail service probably need to be looked at completely differently from how they have been looked at to date, not just here but on the entire island.

Mr. Richard Logue:

I thank Deputy Calleary. I have been involved with the Into the West rail campaign, so we are very aware of how the estimates from Translink and Northern Ireland railways come about. The model Translink used made several assumptions about increasing the passenger capacity on the line if further trains were run. It is safe to say that once the new timetable was introduced, and especially when the new trains were brought on stream, Translink put a lot of effort into promoting the promotional fares. For instance, there is a very cheap fare on Sundays right across Northern Ireland. The model Translink used to put together the original estimates when it did the internal business case for further investment came out way below the actual figures. It estimated it would reach around 1 million passengers by the end of the second year but it reached that point six months in. I would have used that service myself for many years. My family are from Donegal and I used that train for several years in the past when it was a rattly old diesel engine. There would be six people, including me and the driver, on that train coming out of Derry.

It is a different situation now. There is a regular clock-face timetable so people know the train is going to leave at a specific set of hours of the day. There are very good quality, air conditioned trains. They have recently introduced walk-through trains on that line as well. Customer demand outstripped what the managers predicted.

One of the big things we hear from Irish Rail and the National Transport Authority is that they run a railway census every year. The NTA tends to run it in a middle week around November. They are looking at the minimum number of passengers who might board those trains. It is worth pointing out that this is a tactic used by Richard Beeching when he was chairman of British Rail back in the early 1960s. He used the idea of the censuses as a stick to show how lightly used certain lines were. The other issue is that when services started to reopen after the Covid restrictions, people were already complaining about overcrowding. That has shown there has been more demand. A key point that Mr. Mulligan raised very well is the slowness of, for instance, the Sligo trains. Those trains are running on speed restrictions, which dampens down demand.

I will hand over to my colleague, Mr. Stacpoole, to follow up on further questions Deputy Calleary raised.

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

We are not really sure what the NTA's modelling is. I work for Network Rail and have worked in the UK railway industry for the best part of 20 years. We use something called the passenger demand forecasting handbook, which Mr. Logue will be familiar with. That is how we identify demand. It works quite well as a model. It does have its flaws because it is perhaps more suited to cities and interurban rail than regional or rural rail. The forecasting really does come down to the level of services, as I noted in the previous answer. Frequency is the key. When Dick Fearn was managing director and we had the modernisation in the early part of the 2000s, frequency was a key and we saw massive growth in demand.

In terms of railway modelling, the first phase of the western rail corridor, the Limerick to Galway intercity route, was forecast to have 200,000 passengers within two or three years. It exceeded its predicted passenger numbers quite quickly despite a recession. In 2019, the last year before Covid, it was carrying over 550,000 passengers a year. The timetable on that is not very good. For example, my father wanted to go from Limerick to Galway last week to go to a hospital appointment. He could not get a train there and back in the time because the timetable was not conducive to allowing him to do so and the journey time is still slow and can be improved. Consequently, he got a taxi at horrendous expense.

It comes down to the service levels we are going to offer. The experience we have had everywhere so far has shown that when we put more trains on, the demand is there. Obviously in very rural areas that may not be the case. Going back to what Deputy Matthews said, where we have planning we put in more housing. In Nenagh, 140 houses are going to go right next to the station. That is going to create potentially at least 300 people travelling in to Limerick or going to Dublin. I do not think rail planning takes account of that. It is always very short-term planning rather than medium to long term. That is the problem, because we do not have that rail expertise in the NTA or in the Department to ask Irish Rail to procure rail services.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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There are a couple of issues to be raised in whatever correspondence the committee is going to have. Demand is one thing but service level, consistency and quality of service, and frequency are also issues. The Bradley report has shown an economic demand. I know that has been forwarded to the committee. I commend Western Rail Corridor on commissioning it. I thank all the witnesses.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

One of the important things from my point of view is information and promotion of the services. I lived in Cloughjordan for a while about ten years ago and the signpost indicating the station, which was just over 1 km outside the town, showed a steam train. I wondered whether people thought there might not have been a service there at all. As part of any funding package for improving services there needs to be clear attention given to the way in which those services can be promoted and the information about them. It is not good enough to say people can look it up online. Much more subtle things are required to change people's behaviour. It is really important that is put into any budget on new lines, stations or openings or on new or additional services.

Mr. John Mulligan:

Deputy Calleary raised the issue that if a greenway was built on that western rail alignment, it would stop a railway being built. I want to scotch that rumour, which is widely believed but not true. The licensing agreement between CIÉ and the county councils on greenways is very specific in that rail is the priority use of the asset at all times. Putting a greenway on a rail route does nothing but preserve the route for posterity. Donegal was raised earlier. In Bundoran the railway alignment has been absorbed by some of the roads. As Jim Meade said, and Deputy Calleary was the one who extracted this comment from him last month, a greenway is a win-win because it keeps the asset under State ownership and keeps it utilised. If there is a decision at some time in the future for it to go back into public transport mode, the licensing arrangement is such that it can do so. That is very clear and unequivocal.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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What is the difference between the EY report and the Bradley report? That is the key.

Mr. Mike Devane:

There are basic issues with the EY report around accuracy. Having been involved at the front end of the report where we set the terms of reference, some of them were not adequately met in our opinion, particularly around what the future opportunity was. That is the more significant issue. That gets me into the Deputy's comment on the importance of the Atlantic economic corridor, AEC. The first Deputy made the point about how the communities along the axis will respond to building up more density. Very clearly with the AEC we have already gone after that, we have looked at all of the chambers along that axis running from Kerry to Derry, getting them to support what we are doing. The issue becomes one of defining what exactly we are talking about. If we do an all-island rail review, the critical issue is what economic guidance is going to be given to the people doing the review. We have concerns today that freight business in the north west needs to have access to the Foynes port to be successful and vice versa. If we look at the medium and longer term, a critical economic issue needs to be addressed in respect of all the regions that run from Donegal down to Kerry.

In those counties the gross value add per person, which is the real economic measurement to look at, is about half of the average. The greater Dublin area is at approximately double the average generally speaking. When we talk about an economic corridor running from Derry to Kerry, we are talking about a practical application of the assets we have in a continuous form to give us a city of scale so that we can attract the kind of inward investment we need to build that. We know from the study Dr. Bradley did in Mayo - Mayo is like all the other counties - that five large companies contribute the majority of the GDP of that county. If any one of those were to go, the GDP would be likely to drop by a significant amount. This is important because Dr. Bradley's report also shows there are very high dependencies in Mayo and in the other counties. By dependency I mean there is a demographic issue with many younger people and older people. We do not have the people in the centre aged between 25 and 50 and that demographic is hollowed out. We know this because we have seen migration out of the regions for a long time; that is the old story.

We are talking about correcting this gross value add. We are talking about building up. When we are talking about regional balance, we are talking about getting the net contribution to GDP per region or per county to be at least equal to the cost of that county in terms of what is dependent. In this case, dependent includes people working in the public sector, people working in farming who are subvented, pensioners who are paid etc. The idea of balance here is to increase gross value add so that it can pay for its county and every county can wash its face basically.

The idea of the corridor is to use the assets available in a very practical way and create one backbone that runs from north to south. When that backbone is built, we can at least attract the kind of investment about which we are talking. We need to bear in mind that two large investments were considered for Galway, one employing hundreds and the other employing thousands. We were not able to lock in either of those for many reasons. A major reason was people's mobility and the ability to move people quickly from place to place. That is the idea of the corridor.

I would make another point about greenways.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am conscious of time.

Mr. Mike Devane:

I will make a quick point on greenways if you do not mind, Chairman. I do not have a problem with greenways in any shape or form, but I would make the point that north of the Dublin-to-Galway line we do not have sufficient grid capacity. If we had the companies in the morning ready to set up in Ballina, Letterkenny or wherever, we could not handle it. Our recommendation has been that the railway system itself can be also used to service utility distribution, particularly with power. Ultimately railways will use electricity in the majority of cases. When we look at the all-island review, there is an opportunity for us to decide to use this public land to run the utilities and in particular to distribute power on a DC basis under the railways and bring it up into the grid where it is needed. My point is that other utilities could use the rail networks and that also needs to be considered from the railway viewpoint.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I now call Deputy Conway-Walsh, who is substituting for Deputy Ó Murchú.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I thank my colleagues, Deputies Ó Murchú and O'Rourke, for allowing me in today. I really wanted to be here to discuss this matter. Obviously like Deputy Calleary, I am from Mayo. In the context of its importance to the Atlantic economic corridor, is the western rail corridor shovel ready if the funding were to be provided tomorrow morning? I have read the report by Dr. John Bradley and other reports which make a strong business case for it. If population is to be the overriding variable in any cost-benefit analysis, we will never get anything done. We in the west and in Mayo are getting really tired of the doublespeak about the western rail corridor and the Atlantic economic corridor. I was delighted with the Atlantic economic corridor because I thought at last this is the vital piece of infrastructure on which we can hang everything. We know where we are going and there is a strategic joined-up approach here. I commended Government and everybody involved on it. I will come to Mr. Devane shortly. Where has that gone? Why is there so much doublespeak on these projects and initiatives? The first question is: is the Atlantic economic corridor shovel ready?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

Yes, it is. Iarnród Éireann has confirmed that to us. If it got to go ahead, it would be prepared to move on it without delay. The first thing that would need to happen is that further clearance on the track would be required. The plans would probably be revised because although the plans are already in existence they would need to be tailored for the present situation. If the Government were to finance the western rail corridor, according to Dr. Bradley's estimate, it would cost €154 million. It could proceed without very much delay and could be completed within three to four years. We are talking about the section from Athenry to Claremorris, which would obviously link Ballina inland port to Shannon Foynes Port and on to Cork and Waterford. It would obviously link the towns of Claremorris, Castlebar, Westport, Ballina and Tuam to our regional capital in Galway.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I have heard the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, say how important it is to connect all that up. This is why I am confused. Every politician I speak to, with very few exceptions, seems to recognise the importance of it. If there is so much political support for it, why is it not happening? Why do we get a TEN-T report which leaves it out of the core projects again? During the Covid pandemic, there was a sudden realisation of the imbalance of the regions. We said we would do things differently and that we would not go to back to the way we were before. It now seems that everything is settling back again and we will not address regional imbalance. I ask Mr. Devane to outline the status of the Atlantic economic corridor. How important is rail infrastructure to that?

Mr. Mike Devane:

I will break it up into two phases. When we first raised the concept, we needed to get buy-in from people, particularly from the business community, and to get people along the axis to work together. The task force that was formed by Deputy Ring worked very well for a number of years. That task force basically went about making very specific enabling changes that have helped us quite a bit. The ten local authorities started to work together and that has proven to be very good. When the former Ministers of State, Senator Kyne and Deputy Canney, were chairs, they drove that. They drove the funding and drove the people in the local authorities along the corridor to focus specifically on working together. That collaboration is working. At the outset, local authorities worked very much in their own framework. We now know of several instances where they are coming together. In the case of Ireland West Airport, local authorities are working together to ensure that happens. We have a better example in the Shannon Estuary with Shannon-Foynes-----

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Do they all agree on the importance the western rail corridor? Do they all agree on how important rail infrastructure is?

Mr. Mike Devane:

Is the Deputy asking if there is agreement among the local authorities?

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Mr. Mike Devane:

As I understand it, they do. I have never heard any objection. We have gone through that phase.

The problem we have now is that it is about ambition and where people want to go. That is why I gave the numbers on gross value add, GVA. In order to move the dial on GVA and correct the imbalance, we need to make significant investment to create some form of value-add activity, such as large fabrication plants, large biopharma plants and so on. That requires having this backbone with all the utilities prioritised on it so that those utilities can be used.

The proposed development of a data centre outside Galway was possible only because it is the only place-----

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I need to interrupt Mr. Devane because we have limited time.

Why have we moved to being a region in transition and why have we seen from the recent Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures showing that the income inequality gap is three times larger?

Mr. Mike Devane:

The simple answer to the Deputy's question is that, from a political and Government point of view, we are not setting out what the economic guidance should be and what level of economic activity we should expect along that axis. If those were set out correctly, we would not be here talking about opening the railway. It would be a done deal because it would be obvious it would have to be done. The political and governmental system does not have the necessary ambition and is not setting out the economic guidance that is required to allow the type of investment we are discussing.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to give Mr. Feeney an opportunity to contribute. At €154 million, we are talking about a small amount of money. Why are we back here time and again? It does not make sense.

Mr. Peter Feeney:

With all due respect, that is a political question. People in the Department of Transport and the Ministers who have been in charge of it for some years might be better placed to answer it than I. We are not rail enthusiasts. Rather, we are enthusiasts for the west of Ireland and the economic and social development of our region. Rail helps that.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Climate change, emissions and so on as well.

Mr. Peter Feeney:

Exactly. Those aspects have caught up with us since. Climate change, the fact it now costs €2 per litre of petrol and so on have bolstered the case for reopening the western rail corridor.

I will highlight a microcosm of the situation. There are 1,000 acres of State-owned land earmarked for development between Athenry and Galway city. Every acre of that is served by the railway. Mr. Devane spoke about the possibilities for growth. By the way, no decision has been made on the largest of those projects. It looks slightly to be at a remove now, but no decision has been made. Someone could get on a train in Claremorris or Castlebar and get straight to a site on 1,000 acres that are earmarked for economic development. Those places are going to drive the west. We cannot give up any inch of advantage we have, and the western rail corridor is a fundamental part of that. We have the Bonham Quay office development in Galway city. It has no parking because it is right beside the rail station. It got its planning permission because it was right beside the rail station and involved minimal parking. There are 1,000 office jobs there. People will have to travel in by train to go to work. Rail is the future.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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How concerned is Mr. Feeney about recent developments in the TEN-T?

Mr. Peter Feeney:

We have been let down time and again as regards the TEN-T. There are no other words for it. We are extremely disappointed.

Mr. Mike Devane:

I might comment on the TEN-T. We search and lobby in Brussels to find out how it can be moved forward. As recently as an adviser speaking two days ago, the answer has always been that Brussels thinks what we are doing is a great idea, important and within what Europe is trying to do, but the Irish Government is not supporting it and Brussels is not hearing about it from the Government, so we had better convince the Government we want to do this. That is my understanding as to why this piece of railway is not included in the TEN-T.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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That is my understanding as well. We have gone to Brussels and got the same answers. There are serious questions to be answered. The rail review is our last opportunity. I believe the Minister has said it will be published in late summer. We need to see this project being properly recognised in the rail review.

I am also on the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Union of Students in Ireland, USI, and all stakeholders are concerned about the lack of transport. We will soon have the technological university, which we are thrilled and delighted about, but its impact will be curtailed if we do not have the public transport infrastructure to go with it.

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I might make a point. Last Thursday, the Minister told the Dáil he expected the report to be ready around the end of the year. The timeframe is moving back continually. I agree with everything the Deputy has said, particularly about education, in which I have worked for all my life. It is one thing to educate the young people of the west and then give them a ticket to go and live in Dublin or somewhere else, but what we in the west need to do, and this speaks to what Mr. Devane described, is to educate our young people, which we do in Sligo, Galway and Limerick, and then keep them in the west. The main beneficiary of that will be the greater Dublin area, which as we all know is suffering greatly from overcrowding, traffic and other issues.

This is not an east versus west confrontation by any manner or means. We all have relations in Dublin. I was educated in Dublin and I have no issues with any of that. Instead, we are dealing with a situation where a large part of Ireland north of a line from Galway to Dublin has been seriously neglected, namely, the Border, west and north west region. If Arup does not recognise that and make proposals on the development of rail in that area alongside the billions of euro that have been earmarked for Dublin and the wider east – we do not begrudge them that money because they need it, as we have heard today – and if it cannot give us a meagre €154 million to open a key piece of infrastructure, it will tell us a great deal about how Arup was set up to arrive at those conclusions. The Deputy has asked questions that would be better addressed to the Department of Transport on why these reports keep coming up with the same answer.

According to the CEO of Iarnród Éireann, €1 million has been given to Arup. It is a reputable group of people and I am confident they will recognise, irrespective of what kind of steering group is running the review, that there has to be development in the rest of Ireland on the basis of fairness alone.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests. This has been an insightful and engaging conversation and I compliment our guests on their opening remarks. I had to smile when Mr. Feeney used the phrase "We built it and they came" in respect of the Oranmore station, as demonstrated in its strong patronage and increased passenger numbers. In our case in Mayo, the headline in The Western Peopleabout the official opening of the then Connacht Regional Airport in 1986 was "And they said it couldn't be done". In the lead-up to the airport opening, political will for it was practically non-existent. The airport, on that boggy and sometimes foggy site outside Knock, reached nearly 1 million passengers yearly before the pandemic. The initial conservative forecast was for more than 8,000 passengers. We have seen what can be done. As Mr. Devane outlined, the western rail project is a golden opportunity in the wider strategic context of economic development, and that should not be forgotten.

My question is on Iarnród Éireann's recently published Rail Freight 2040 strategy. It is incredible it ignores the rail freight potential of the western rail corridor. It suggests that rail freight from Mayo to the nation's newest tier 1 port in Foynes should travel via the greater Dublin area on a potential 850 km route instead of going directly down the western seaboard via Galway and Clare, offering those counties access to rail freight as well as the connectivity Mayo currently enjoys.

I would like to get an understanding from West on Track as to whether it was aware that Iarnród Éireann was working on this rail freight strategy and what is its views on the current situation. Certainly, Mayo has a strong presence in terms of all intermodal shipping traffic to Irish Rail for the past 16 years and it has been certainly seriously disadvantaged by this strategic review.

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I thank Deputy Dillon for his question. The Deputy's point is well made about the rail freight strategy that was published, if you could call it "published", before Christmas. It was widely expected that the western rail corridor would be included in that. It is my belief that if Iarnród Éireann had its way it would have been included in that, but for some reason it was not. It was taken off the map. The question we have to ask is, why are these kinds of decisions being made? I am afraid I am not in a position to answer.

What I can say with certainty is that this week there will be 18 freight trains from County Mayo - nine into the county and nine out of the country. Eight will be coming from Ballina and one will be coming from Westport. Four of the outward bound services will be going to Waterford and five will be going to Dublin. That will increase in the next few months when XPO launches its second freight service to Waterford from Mayo. That is why it is difficult to see why the potential for that was omitted, as the Deputy says, from the rail freight strategy. I cannot tell the Deputy why. Maybe Iarnród Éireann can tell him why.

The reality is this freight exists because in the early 2000s it was decided that Ballina freight port would be closed and West on Track was instrumental in ensuring that it did not close. Working with Iarnród Éireann and Mayo industries, the situation was brought about where the freight that the Deputy sees today was put in place and different operators have operated over the years. What is significant about this is that IWT and XPO are two Dublin-based international companies shipping to Europe and they are shipping from Ballina. IWT has appeared before this committee and stated that it requires the western rail corridor, in its view, to expand its operation and to expand out into neighbouring counties such as Galway and Clare. The Irish Exporters Association has made it clear that it supports the reopening of this corridor as a freight route in the context of the reopening of Foynes, as the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has said on several occasions.

The Port of Waterford and Foynes port both wrote to Dr. John Bradley, when he was doing his report, strongly supporting the link between Ballina and those ports using the western rail corridor. It might be said that 18 trains a week, or 20, as it will be, hopefully, later in spring, is a relatively small number of trains but if you had another 20 from Galway and another 20 from Clare, that would be 60 trains a week. The 18 trains out of Mayo this week are taking 324 articulated lorries off the road and I would submit that is the vision the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, puts forward as far as climate change and all of that is concerned. That illustrates how green the movement of freight by rail is. As Deputy Dillon says, it is ridiculous to think that when Foynes port is opened, if the situation with the map on the freight strategy continues, all of that freight will be moved from Ballina to the greater Dublin area and then down to Limerick and out to Foynes. That does not make any sense.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Ó Raghallaigh.

In relation to the Into the West campaign, Mr. Logue talked previously, and then Deputy Calleary mentioned, about the conservative estimates that were originally outlined. What changed in terms of the momentum in his campaign at that stage? Was the political will or buy-in there during Mr. Logue's initial exchanges with Ministers and Government officials?

Mr. Richard Logue:

It was a difficult time because at the time the Stormont Executive was up and down at different points as well. When we could not at times engage with Ministers, we had to engage directly with the civil servants. However, the campaign really worked because local politicians right across the spectrum, regardless of whether they were unionist, nationalist or other, were engaged and realised that this was something that had to happen, as otherwise Derry and the entire north west would be cut off completely because the original proposals were to close the railway after Ballymena. Getting the buy-in from politicians was not that difficult.

The key was making sure that the business case was put forward. People realised that they would get better trains, and they got better trains. The old trains were not in any great shape and were very much life expired by 2004. Translink withdrew those trains probably as late as 2005 to 2010. With the new trains coming on stream and, importantly, the timetable, it really fired the imagination of the locals around Derry because suddenly there was an attractive service that they could use. It was not as quick as it could be but the fact that you are running a reliable timetable and running clean, comfortable and modern trains means it is attractive. As I say, Translink provided good promotional fares. In fact, they still provide a flat fare right across Northern Ireland on a Sunday of £8. You can travel from Derry to Newry for £8 on any Translink service.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Is there a freight service?

Mr. Richard Logue:

There is none. In particular, we have got the railway running past the city of Derry port of Lisahally. We have engaged. Into the West is continuing to engage with the managers of that port. There is potential for freight because Lisahally takes freight coming by sea into places such as north Donegal and Sligo. It is an important cross-Border port from our point of view in the Republic.

The railway, as I say, runs right past that. The capital investment involved in providing a small siding and some points would not be that big. Listening to the webinar from Derry City and Strabane District Council yesterday, a senior civil servant in the Department of transport stated that the Department is watching closely the outcome of the strategic rail review in the context of freight. The last freight trains were run on Translink's network, probably as long ago as 2002 but there is very much a need in the North, as there is down here, to reduce the amount of heavy goods vehicles, HGVs, on the roads.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank each and every one of our guests for joining us this morning to discuss the development, reinvigoration and bringing back to life of a piece of public infrastructure that has not served the needs of our communities in the west for a very long time. Senator Horkan spoke earlier about the fact that our guests are all volunteers. They all do this for reasons that are dear to their hearts in terms of how they want to see the west of Ireland developing and I thank them for that work. Many of them have been doing this for a very long time indeed - those who have advocated for the reopening of the western rail corridor for decades at this point and people such as Mr. Mulligan, who are looking to see that rail route protected until such time as it makes sense for that development, advocating for a holding position of a greenway.

All of us who live in the west can see the benefits that would accrue from the development of this line as a rail service providing some of the benefits spoken of by those advocating for that this morning but we also need to be pragmatists and realists here as to what is possible now, in the medium term and in the long term. We do the people we serve a great disservice unless we do exactly that - look at the facts as presented to us right now and try as best we can with the aid of people who are far more expert than we are in the development of national rail infrastructure as they advise and guide us to make the right decision as to how this asset is used to the best effect for the people we serve.

Every report commissioned in recent years has drawn roughly the same conclusion, either that it does not make sense to develop the western rail corridor north of Athenry at this time or that it does not make sense to do so in the long term. The most recent report commissioned by the Department arrived at that conclusion. It was then sent by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to an entity with the European Commission, Joint Assistance to Support Projects in the European Regions, JASPERS, which is acknowledged as being expert in the development of rail infrastructure across the European Union. It drew the same conclusion, that is, there is no social or economic benefit accruing right now from the development of the line within the region which it serves.

As regards the political perspectives on this issue, the current Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, stated in 2017 that he could not envisage the return of rail services on the line, given the lack of a strong economic case to support it. The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, stated in 2014 that the Government had no plans to extend the western rail corridor or any other heavy rail line in the State. The current Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, stated while Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in 2015 that his Department was supportive of a proposal to develop the disused Collooney to Claremorris rail line as a greenway. As recently as last week, the current Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, stated in the Dáil:

Once one goes north of Claremorris, the line is not extant. Everyone is agreed that the section north towards Collooney and Sligo is highly unlikely in the immediate future to be considered for rail services.

He also stated last week:

[I]s there is a demand for commuting from Claremorris or Tuam into Galway on rail? The answer is clearly 'No', as ... JASPERS, said.

Those are the facts presented to us right now. The facts oblige us to make decisions that are in the best interests of the people we serve. As I said clearly to the Minister in the Dáil Chamber last week, we need to make a decision now. We need to make a fundamental decision about how exactly this key piece of public infrastructure is going to be used in the coming five, ten 20 or 30 years.

The experts within Iarnród Éireann who are charged with setting out a rail freight strategy for the country arrived at a conclusion published in July last year that it makes no sense right now to develop any freight services along that line, but they also said it makes absolute sense to develop a regional freight hub in Athenry, adjacent to the rail station. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, recently stated that the most urgent rail investment we can make in the west of Ireland is double-tracking the line from Athenry to Oranmore, bearing in mind that there are more people commuting to Galway city from Athenry and Oranmore than there are from the whole of County Mayo.

These are the facts as presented to us right now. All I am asking is that we act, as I am sure all present intend to do, in the best interests of the people of every village and town from Athenry to Collooney and, in a spirit of hands across the Border, all the way to Enniskillen. They are sick to the teeth looking out their window for the past 30 or 40 years and seeing this piece of infrastructure rotting away into the ground, serving no purpose whatsoever.

My question for Mr. Ó Raghallaigh is the following. We will have the outcome of yet another review at the end of the year. I dearly wish that it will say it makes both economic and social sense to begin developing that rail line connecting Athenry to Claremorris and perhaps even further north. If it does, I will be delighted and as that development gets under way, I will begin advocating for the development of a greenway alongside it which, in the greater scheme of things in terms of the cost of the development, would not represent a very significant investment. If the rail review arrives at a different conclusion, however, such as yet another fudge or kicking the can down the road again, does not reach any firm conclusion on whether we need to begin developing a rail service on that line, would it not make sense then, at least in the interim, to use the line to serve the interests of the people who live along it? The people of every village and town along the line are seeing millions of euro being pumped into greenway investment across the country. For example, I refer to the benefits it has brought to places such as Westport and Newport in Mr. Ó Raghallaigh's county, the beautiful County Mayo. Newport is re-energised and re-visioned for the future as a result of that development. Places such as Kilmacthomas in Waterford are seeing an extraordinary turnaround in their fortunes, both in terms of their economy and the quality of life in those places.

The worst thing and the greatest disservice we could do to people in the west of Ireland is to say they are going to have neither a rail line nor a greenway. Mr. Mulligan made the case earlier and I will reiterate it. In August 2013, Barry Kenny stated Irish Rail would license the routes to local authorities to enable them to develop cycleways and greenways on them because there was no doubt they are a fantastic tourism opportunity and it protects the alignment in the longer term. He stated the railways are protected by the very existence of the cycleways should they be needed in the future. Jim Meade told this committee in February 2021, "The greenway is a win-win ... because it keeps the asset in State ownership". That is all we are asking.

I am deeply fearful that by the time the review is published at the end of the year, we will be left with nothing. Mr. Ó Raghallaigh will be waiting and those advocating for a greenway will be waiting and that is not the outcome we want to see happening. I am asking a very simple question. If it transpires that when it is published at the end of the year the rail review concludes that right now, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, it makes no sense to develop that line, will he then advocate for the development of a greenway as a holding position to protect the asset and to begin bringing some degree of economic benefit to the communities it serves?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I will refer that to my colleague, Mr. Devane.

Mr. Mike Devane:

With all due respect, if the Deputy is concerned about the welfare and future of communities in the west, we need to correct the issue of regional imbalance. The only way of doing so is to set out an economic strategy that corrects it. We know from the work we have done that such a strategy must include large infrastructural development to support the type of industry investment that will drive up GDP and create the gross value added, GVA, that is needed per person. That is what is needed now. The Deputy is right. We do need to make a decision. We need to make a decision that we are either doing something about it or we are not. With all due respect, I am all for greenways and recreation and people enjoying the fresh air. I live in the countryside and I am all for that. By far the more important thing, however, is that key assets and infrastructure that are required for future development are protected for that development and are immediately put into use. We are talking here about a piece of infrastructure that can immediately be put into use that will protect existing investment in the west and will attract other investment.

I have spent most of my life working for large corporations and in the US, arguing for investment for Ireland. I understand exactly why people invest and why they put things in places. We do not have that much to sell when one goes north of the Galway-Dublin line. The Deputy is right - we do need to make a decision. The decision we need to make is whether we are going to fix this problem or not. That guidance, whatever it is, should be given to the rail review people and they should be told that either we are going to use this as part of our economic backbone or we do not care about it, in which case they can do whatever they choose. That is the decision that needs to be made.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I agree completely. It is exactly the decision that needs to be made. Is Mr. Devane suggesting that in giving guidance to those carrying out the rail review, we should seek to pre-empt the outcome of the review and direct them to arrive at a particular conclusion?

Mr. Mike Devane:

This is not an issue. If one does a rail review or any kind of review of assets and one considers whether there will be a return on a further investment on those assets, one has to start with the perspective one has with respect to its future use. The future use of that rail line is entirely down to the economic guidance that is given by the State and the political system.

We are clearly saying that it needs to be used and that it is essential for the correction of the issues we are dealing with. With all due respect to the Deputy, the question is back to the members and what they want us to do. It is not about rigging or pre-empting any endpoint; it is about setting out a set of scenarios that one can plan with. Those scenarios include the use of that infrastructure and those assets to create the economy that we need in those regions.

Mr. Peter Feeney:

The final decision will be a political decision; it will not be decided by a rail review. The Deputy quoted the Tánaiste, who stated in 2014 that there would be no further investment in or extension of the heavy rail system. We are extending the heavy rail system now. That is gone. We also have petrol at €2 per litre. In addition, we have to deal with climate change. All of that is based in this building. All decisions are made here, whether we like it or not. This is public money, public infrastructure and public policy. We have bolstered the reasons for reopening rail in recent years. In the past number of weeks, they have only been bolstered again. I put it to the committee that it must be opened. The amount involved is €150 million. It would be a boon to connect Galway to its hinterland to the north by means of proper public transport infrastructure.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I will make a final case. I agree wholeheartedly with everything the witnesses said. I also agree that, ultimately, the decision will be made within these walls. Every decision that is made within these walls is guided by a number of factors including the socioeconomic impact of whatever decision we make, be it negative or positive. The return on investment ultimately to us, as taxpayers, is also a key element of the decision-making processes. All that I, John Mulligan and the 25,000 others who have signed a petition asking for a greenway are asking is if there is an interim policy. If there is not, that is wonderful. If the rail review is published at the end of the year and states that €150 million should be invested right now or over the next ten years, we would be delighted. Then we would sit down with the Minister and whoever else to ask for a greenway to be developed alongside the line. Reading every past rail review and the conclusions they arrived at, in particular the conclusions arrived at by the very people we would be seeking to invest, namely, the European Investment Bank and JASPERS, I cannot pragmatically or realistically see a conclusion being drawn that this is going to happen. All we are asking is that, following the advice of the people who manage our national rail network every day of the week, we retain that key State asset in public ownership by means of the development of a greenway - rather than anything as significant as a rail line - and bring significant economic benefit to places that have not seen it in a very long time. That is the case I make.

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

With regard to the references to JASPERS, there was no proper peer review done of the EY report. JASPERS states in its project screening note: "... our note is not a critique of the EY report, but is instead a broad assessment of the maturity and feasibility of the project based on material that has been published to date." When we consider the number of errors in the EY report, it did require a peer review. JASPERS did not offer a peer review of the detail of that report. Had they done so, they would have found that many of the points made by EY were totally inaccurate. They gave the population of Tuam at 1,100 and they said that nobody, zero passengers, would transfer from their cars to a commuter train to Galway if such a commuter train was available. These were the kinds of errors that led to dismay in the west of Ireland when the EY report was prepared. This is why Dr. Bradley undertook his report. He systematically demolished the arguments against the railway line. He noted, as I have read out to the committee, what JASPERS actually said. JASPERS did not do a comprehensive peer review of the EY report. It did less than eight pages of commentary. It was broad and general commentary. It alluded to the fact that our current status in the European Union meant that Ireland would not have access to EU funding. Even if we never had EU funding, which would be 30% of the €150 million, €150 million would not build three miles of motorway.

I put it back to the Deputy that I know where he is coming from with this. I am prepared to accept the Deputy's bona fides that he is dying to see this railway being reopened, and if he is, I suggest that the Deputy goes to speak as loudly as he can for its reopening to his colleagues in Fine Gael and to his colleagues across the different parties here in Dáil Éireann. We need urgent remedial action in the west of Ireland as our status is slipping. The European Union is recognising that. I am not convinced that greenways, however welcome they are, will provide us with the sinews of war to fight the battle for the future development of the west of Ireland.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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I apologise for being late. I was listening to the commentary on the way up this morning. I confess that I was not on a train. I was not cycling either. I was driving and I was listening to the meeting on the Leinster House app.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will not be hung, drawn and quartered for that. There is an occasion for that.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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Not yet, but it is probably coming to that. As one who comes from the west of Ireland and having served as a Minister of State in the Department with Deputy Ring, while I would not say it is a conflict of interests, I must confess that Peter Feeney worked with me at one time when I was in the Chief Whip's office, and is a good friend and former colleague on the county council.

As a west of Ireland man I want to see the western rail corridor opens reopened. I also want to see greenways rolled out across the country. If, in order to achieve what Deputy Cannon wants and what many other people want, which is a greenway, we lost key critical infrastructure that is the western rail track, it would be a great shame. To do that would be a retrograde step as it has been there for a period of time. I accept that there is huge frustration. I have met people who were supportive of reopening the line and a train running, but who have since said that nothing has been happening so let us build a greenway. I accept that there has been debate and that it is realistic. This is why I am disappointed we have not been able to make more progress during the period in Government with regard to reopening that key piece of infrastructure. We have protected it and we have kept it there for future use.

Deputy Matthews made a point earlier around the development of key areas, and Mr. Feeney also acknowledged this, such as Oranmore, Athenry, Tuam and Claremorris, with the largest of those towns being Tuam. The case for protecting the line and reopening it for rail is, in my view, made. That is absolute. If a service is provided, if it is reliable and if there is high-frequency capacity, it will be used. We could develop those towns along the corridor with sufficient capacity. We need houses for people to live in and we need economic development in the west of Ireland.

I disagree with Mr. Mulligan's point. I am not sure if Deputy Cannon reaffirmed that or not. If we built a greenway on the line and then suddenly changed our mind in the future, I do not believe that it would just be a case of taking it up. There would be a huge campaign, and rightly so, by people who would say that they had fought for the greenway infrastructure and that they do not want it removed for rail. I do not accept that point. This is not to say that there could not be agreement somewhere else along the corridor, or elsewhere, but I just do not buy that argument. I have seen this too often in relation to local campaigns that can get difficult. There might not be questions in my contribution but there is a lot of commentary on what I believe is positive and possible for the west of Ireland in protecting that key line and its potential. It is all the more pressing in the context of climate change, sustainable development and regional development. I certainly hope that the Government does not just protect the line to look at it, but also protects the line to build it, and supports the development of a greenway alongside or appropriate to it.

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I thank Senator Kyne for that commentary. I agree with everything he said.

I wish to underline that we have no difficulty with people building greenways. The only issue we have with the greenway business is the idea that it must be built on a railway. There is no sensible reason a railway has to be taken over just because it happens to be in public ownership. County Mayo has been to the forefront of the development of greenways in this country. I note that major greenways that have been successful are predominantly in areas of high scenic amenity. Regarding the development of our towns, the county councils in Mayo and Galway are prioritising planning to make sure housing is developed as close as possible to the centre of towns, which means railway stations will be in an ideal position to take people from those places to wherever they want to go, for example, if they want to go to Galway or work in Tuam, where a large number of people from Claremorris work.

What was said about the development of our towns bears out the thesis behind building a western rail corridor. It is about connectivity or creating an economic corridor. We support that. We are not prepared to concede that the development of a railway should wait any longer. It is down to the politicians to make the decision. They cannot just close their ears to the situation in the west of Ireland. Deputies from all parties understand the situation. The EU has told us and we need to listen.

Mr. John Mulligan:

All of the witnesses are in broad agreement about a number of issues, one of which is that, depending on the timetable and its scale, the railway corridor being reopened would be an asset to the west. However, what is there at the moment is not a railway. It is a strip of land that runs from Athenry to Kilclooney. That is a State asset which belongs to all of us. Mr. Devane rightly stated that one of the uses for that strip of land should be transmitting power. We have been saying this for ten years. We have also been saying that it should be used to transmit broadband because in the future, our exports will be sent not on trains but on fibre cable. If we want to improve towns in the so-called black triangle, we need salaries, not necessarily freight trains rolling through them. We need people working remotely and spending their money in those towns.

I do not know how I can get this point across. Senator Kyne returned to it when he said that once a greenway is built on a rail alignment, that is the end of the railway. That is the Boxcar Willie point - if the track is lifted, it is all over. That is nonsense, however. I have seen the licence agreement Irish Rail has with Waterford County Council regarding the Waterford greenway and it is watertight. The main piece of that repayment is that the primary use of this asset is for future rail use. I do not know how many ways that must be translated for that message to get across.

Deputy Cannon asked what if the rail review finds whatever it finds. CIÉ does not decide to build railways, I do not decide to build railways and Colmán Ó Raghallaigh does not decide to build railways. The people who decide that are in this House and they have decided thus far not to build a railway on that route. If they are not going to build a railway in the next five to ten years, they should put a temporary greenway on that alignment, preserve and protect it and milk it as an asset. When and if there is reason to build a railway, build it and build a greenway alongside it. That is a very simple concept. A child could understand it, yet we have difficulty in getting that across to Members in this House - with honourable exceptions. I do not know how many ways we must say that but this is an asset that belongs to us all. Leverage it. Do not leave it there for another 40 years. Do not keep saying like we do with draining the Shannon, "Come back to me next time and we will do it". We just want a decision to be made. That is all we want.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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The message is getting across. I just do not believe the message. I appreciate the interest Mr. Mulligan has and the volunteering role he plays and I accept his bona fides. He mentioned the Waterford to Dungarvan greenway. If there was an attempt to take up this greenway in the morning for a train, by Jesus, we would see a campaign.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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That is because it is working for the communities it serves.

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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This can work as well as a rail service. That is the point. If an attempt was made to take up that greenway for rail, no matter how good a case for a railway in that area might be presented in the future, there would be a huge campaign against it. I do not buy the view that a greenway can be built on it and then removed.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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In that case, what we are saying is that the very people this asset serves have no function in determining its future. That is essentially what we are saying here. The people of Waterford, Dungarvan and Kilmacthomas have seen the incredible economic and social boost in addition to the quality of life boost, which we often forget. This is not just about attracting investment or revitalising towns. It is about delivering an exceptionally high quality of life to the people who live in those places. What we are saying is that if we developed a greenway from Athenry to Claremorris and, ultimately, possibly to Enniskillen, and at some point in the future, a decision to reinstate a rail service was necessary, the people served by that asset would have no role to play in making that decision. That is not-----

Seán Kyne (Fine Gael)
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It would certainly be an interesting debate but I do not believe it would be as simple as taking up the greenway-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I have held back but I have a few questions to put to all parties. Does Mr. Lightfoot wish to make a comment on this before I do so?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

I was hoping to take a minute to make two points. One is that we are very fortunate in having a working rail line. The point I want to make about that picks up on what Deputy Matthews said, which is to sweat the asset. We need to make the point that there has been investment but we have not seen any changes in service or speed levels for 32 years. I think Mr. Stacpoole said it was 75 years. My experience in the 32 years I have lived in County Clare going up and down that particular line is that it has got slower and slower and is not so good. The point I wanted to make about sweating the asset is really important. This includes some cross-committee work because it is the development of the towns, villages and communities along the line that will make it successful. Improvements to the line in terms of service levels and speeds will contribute to that development.

We are discussing the all-Ireland rail review. I presume the committee has looked at the Connecting Ireland process that is under way and will do so again. My feeling is that maybe connecting Ireland is what we are about. That is the whole thing. This sort of silo mentality whereby this is rail, this is-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is called binary thinking. The silo mentality is something I hate. Rail, road, greenways and cycle lines all have a role to play.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

Yes.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The problem is that our narrative is becoming one of it being either "A" or "B". It is not; it is an integrated model. I have a question for West on Track. Regarding the report by Dr. John Bradley in response to the Ernst & Young report, my understanding is that Dr. Bradley used the net present value model to assess the worth of building the railway. Is that correct? Over how many years did he do the net present value?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I believe it was 30 years.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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When Mr. Logue and Mr. Stacpoole are looking at rail projects and they are assessed by the State, what is the typical period of time looked at in terms of a return?

Mr. Richard Logue:

I can only speak from my experience in Great Britain where it would be around a period of 40 years. If you are looking at procurement of rolling stock, for instance, and I think the assumptions work here too, you assume a lifespan of 40 years but there is a diminishing return on investment, the older and more dilapidated the stock gets.

On the physical infrastructure, Mr. Stacpoole will be little bit closer to this one than me, but I would say it is usually in the period of around 30 to 40 years as well. Mr. Stacpoole should feel free to correct me on that point.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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We have spoken about, and Deputy Calleary raised this earlier, the process by which rail projects are adjudicated and assessed to be viable. What is the model that is being used at the moment that Mr. Stacpoole believes should be changed? Is it a longer term model or does it take into account different factors? We have umpteen reports on the western rail corridor. We have the Ernst & Young report, the Bradley report and others. I am very pro-rail. I have taken the train service from Limerick to Dublin every week for many years. Mr. Stacpoole will know this. We had a public meeting on the Limerick-Shannon metropolitan area transport strategy, LSMATS, plan for Limerick and the metropolitan area, and rail was not in it. I want to see rail in it and I hope that will be adjusted. I will come back to the issue of the Ballybrophy line but I am more interested in getting to the nub of the matter here.

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

There is a short and there is a long answer to this.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Give me the short answer, please, and I will tell you then if I need the long one.

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

I will give the Irish context and I come from outside Askeaton in County Limerick. In 2000, the Foynes line was mothballed and a decision was made not to maintain it. At the time the then chief executive, and I worked with the port over a period, asked for the line to be maintained, as it would cost between €50,000 to €100,000 just to keep it in a mothballed condition but where trains could still be run on it. We are now at the point, for example, where we have been talking about reopening it for the best part of 20 years and it is obviously a key piece of infrastructure. Depending on what standard it is reopened at, it will cost between €25 million and €45 million to do so. If the line had been maintained and if we had a long-term view of what we want strategically to get out of our railway, the cost of reopening it would be considerably less. This arises because we have not had a rail freight policy. I believe Jim Meade has appeared in front of this committee and has said that rail freight has to widen its base.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Would the proposal forward by Mr. Mulligan and Deputy Cannon, which is to use the existing rail structure until such a time as it comes to be developed as a rail line, lead to additional cost? When Mr. Stacpoole looks at this, is it a model that can work or does it hinder rail advancement or reinstatement?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

The danger is it creates additional cost. For example, the greenway to Youghal at the moment is being developed from Midleton to Youghal which is about 18 miles, and the figure being spent on that is €15 million just to convert it to a greenway. This will be done under licence from Irish Rail but the long-term aspiration is to restore the railway. The potential problem is that if the case arises to reopen the railway, for example, you are going to have to remove that greenway, restore the railway, which will cost, for argument's sake, €45 million to €50 million to put even a basic rail infrastructure back, and then you potentially will have to buy land to relocate that greenway. You are almost getting a cost and a half, and that is the danger.

That is why Irish Rail have said in Limerick, as the Chairman will know well, that the Foynes route is a key corridor, and while I tried many years ago, as a teenage boy, to get the railway on which the Great Southern Trail greenway is located retained, and while the right use for it now is actually as a greenway and it is a great success for west Limerick, the proposed extension of the greenway back into Limerick city will not be on the railway line because it is recognised that the line is needed. We have to be realistic here. Senator Kyne referred to the Waterford Greenway which is a fantastic asset. I have been on it myself and there is a short little heritage railway on part of it. Realistically, it is probably not going to be restored as a railway line. The same can be said about the railway line to New Ross that has just been handed over by licence. It is probably not going to be reopened.

There is certainly a case for a freight railway from Athenry to Tuam and on to Claremorris. Part of the problem, which is always ignored, is that the policy until now, or to about a year or two ago since this Government came to power, has been that rail freight does not have a future. It was alluded to earlier that we are hitting €2 a litre for fuel. It is going to go up in price and rail freight will become more attractive.

Every week a ship leaves Foynes loaded full of timber from around Tuam that is brought by road down to Limerick city to be put on a ship from Foynes and Limerick city for export. Some of it actually goes on to Waterford by ship, to go to the Coillte factory there.

Coming back to overall infrastructure and looking at the reopening of railways, Scotland is a very good model to look at to see what has happened there with reopening railways. The case is looked at over a 30-year model, and the business case is not just confined to passengers. Network Rail is working with Transport Scotland to open the Levenmouth line, which is just north of Edinburgh, and this project is happening. It is looked at in the long term. In Ireland, unfortunately, we look at this in the short term in terms of planning.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Is the western line we are talking about a single line?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

It is a single line.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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If Irish Rail was to lay a double line, does it have the land to do so along that route?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

It depends who has developed it and when it was built. You have to go back to its history. For example-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Sorry , Mr. Stacpoole, but I will ask I will ask the West on Track representatives this question. Is it a single line?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

It is a single line, but it was designed for a double line from Tuam to Athenry.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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How much of a distance would that be?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

It is 16 or 17 miles.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Where does the single line run from?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

From Claremorris to Tuam.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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If that was to be made into a double line, would private land have to be acquired?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

No, there would be land there but there would be more work involved because it was not originally designed for it.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The land is there. Is there sufficient land along the length of the line to allow a greenway to be put alongside the existing track and, at no additional cost, for the railway line to be left intact? Mr. Stacpoole will know there is a certain village in County Limerick where houses have been built on the old railway line. This is well known. Things happen. They should not, but they do. I take Mr. Mulligan’s point that the contracts are a great deal tighter now, but that rail line can never be got back. It goes through a very historic village in County Limerick. Everyone wants the greenway and the rail track, but on a practical level, is it possible within the existing dimensions? I know and Mr. Lightfoot will know from Limerick that in terms of sweating the assets, as it were, and while I would have an issue with someone nifty who knows, looks at and makes optimum use of existing assets, there was sufficient room to lay a double rail line from Limerick Junction to Limerick city and that is what should have been done. Is it possible at this point for a practical compromise to be reached for the line in question, which is to put a greenway alongside the existing rail line, allow the rail line itself to remain, and when the greenway is being completed, for some works to be done where possible to make the route available for a second rail line or whatever? Can that be done?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

It would depend on the capacity of the existing route at different points. There are certainly places where a greenway could be very comfortably at a safe distance from the actual railway track. This would be decided upon by the railway safety people. There would be other places where it would be necessary for county councils to acquire small sections from farmers, which would be marginal land.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I accept that. The land might have been planted. Can Mr. Mulligan respond, please?

Mr. John Mulligan:

This has already been well dealt with in America with the rails with trails movement where there are tens of thousands of-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I just want to know about the western rail line.

Mr. John Mulligan:

The notion of running trails alongside live railway lines is well considered and well set.

The alignment from Athenry to Collooney, by and large, as Mr. Ó Raghallaigh says, has room for both, but-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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A greenway.

Mr. John Mulligan:

When the Sligo Greenway Co-op was set up, a report was commissioned on the cost of building a greenway on the disused line. The cost of building it alongside the line was three times the cost of building it on the track bed. Irish Rail had no issue with the stone ballast being reused as an interim for the greenway. The payback to the local community by building it on the cheaper model was five years on the capital cost.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am a layman and a person looking in. If there is a phenomenal greenway in Waterford on an existing rail line, when it comes to it, in reality, what are the chances that people who promoted it being turned into a greenway will not start a campaign to ensure it is not returned as a railway line?

Mr. John Mulligan:

In the case of Waterford, it is too late. That horse has bolted, because sections of that line were lost to public squatting and grabbing, so a railway could not be built on it without buying land and diverting some of it.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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A CPO could be issued.

Mr. John Mulligan:

It could, yes.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I just want to talk in practical terms. I am pro-railway.

Mr. John Mulligan:

Yes, so am I.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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We had it with Limerick Junction and the Limerick rail line. As far as I am concerned, there is a stand-off here. Everyone wants the railway, but more people want the greenways. The railway could be seen as a very cost-efficient way to get a greenway in place. However, it may have implications. It makes absolute sense to have greenways along existing rail lines and motorways. That is the way it should be. I am posing the question to find if there is a way through to suit everyone. I will not even use the word compromise. Outside of the costs, is it possible to have a greenway along the existing rail line, and also to preserve the rail line?

Mr. John Mulligan:

I will answer that question. What I will say is that in terms of the western rail corridor, there is no existing rail line in engineering terms.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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There is, however, a route where there was a rail line.

Mr. John Mulligan:

There are tracks and sleepers, but they are all rotten.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Yes, I accept that.

Mr. John Mulligan:

What is there has to come out anyway. It is our contention that where there is no immediate plan for a railway, as in the next five to ten years, a greenway should be built on that alignment.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Okay.

Mr. John Mulligan:

Senator Kyne kept raising the concern as to what happens if a decision is made to have a railway and the greenway is in situ. It is very simple. I and all the people around me have said that it is great if we get a railway, but if we do not, at least we will have a greenway. At the inaugural meeting of the Sligo Greenway Co-op, its chairman, Mr. Pat McCarrick, said we should go for a greenway, that if we get a railway in ten years' time, that will be great, but let us go for what we can do now.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Could I ask Mr. Mulligan a question, as a devil's advocate?

Mr. John Mulligan:

Yes.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Is there any precedent of a disused existing rail line that has been temporarily converted to a greenway being reinstated as a rail line?

Mr. John Mulligan:

Not in Ireland, because we have not built many rail lines.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Has it happened elsewhere in the world?

Mr. John Mulligan:

I think there are one or two in America. I can find out, and I will let the committee know.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I will move on to a question for Mr. Lightfoot on the Ballybrophy line, which is of interest to me. In terms of upgrading the line, is it a double or single line?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

It is a single line most of the way.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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If it were to be upgraded, is there sufficient capacity for it to be a double line? Does Irish Rail own enough land to put a double line in there?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

I think it would be able to do so, but Mr. Stacpoole would be able to give a very clear decision on it. That is not what we are seeking, however.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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How much would what the rail partnership is seeking cost?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

What we are seeking is already funded, in the sense that the completion of the continuously welded rail is already in the budget, and we hope that it is going to be completed this year. The second thing we are seeking, at a minimum, is a service in the middle of the day and we think that would be self-financing.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Is what Mr. Lightfoot is seeking the use of the existing assets and existing line with increased frequency?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

Yes, and also to reconfigure the timetable so that it makes sense. At the moment, the return service from Limerick in the afternoon is at 4.55 p.m. or thereabouts. Nobody is finished work by then.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Could Mr. Lightfoot provide us with precisely the times he is looking at and we might feed that back?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

Yes, I think the timetable is in the PowerPoint presentation that we sent everybody, but we can do it again. That is what we are interested in, and also making sure that there is connectivity with local bus services, which is not there at the moment either.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Would this create much of an additional cost to the State?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

As Mr. Lightfoot has pointed out, the track looks as if it is going to be funded. The next step is that we need to see the level crossings upgraded with a new control and eventually the signalling modernised. As I said earlier, there are 12 manually operated crossings which need to be re-controlled as automatic barriers, and re-controlled to Mallow or Athlone signal centres. One crossing on the Old Dublin Road already has an automatic barrier, but it is manned, so that would mean 11 crossings have to be automated.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Is it the one at Killonan?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

No, it is on the Old Dublin Road at Lisnagry. The crossing is at the old station. There are 11 crossings left that would need to be modernised.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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What is the cost?

Mr. John Mulligan:

Irish Rail has set itself very high standards so the cost per crossing is roughly €1 million. It could do it cheaper if the standards were reduced, in particular on the more minor roads. They are designed in such a way that every automatic level crossing has four barriers, but on a minor road or little boreen, the Commission for Railway Regulation, CRR, which regulates this, could change the standards slightly and it could be done for less. To do that alone, we are talking about a budget of about €11 million, but that would save roughly €1 million a year in operating costs, so over the lifetime of the capital costs the company would get the cost back and the operating costs would be reduced. That is a key point. As we said to Deputy Lowry, we would like to see a programme to abolish farmers' crossings.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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My final question is for West on Track. Mr. Mulligan said it is far more expensive to provide a greenway beside the existing track. Would it reduce the cost if a greenway was to be provided now, using the existing track as a temporary measure, but not in such a way as to prevent the rail line being upgraded, and as soon as that were to happen the greenway would move from point A to point B?

Mr. John Mulligan:

It is important to spell out the difference between Athenry to Claremorris and Claremorris to Collooney. Claremorris to Collooney was built as a light rail. According to the Minister in recent days, it is not even on the cards at the moment. What they are really looking at is Athenry to Claremorris, which is what they should be looking at. It is our view that if a greenway is to happen in the next five to ten years, it should be built alongside the line where there is room to do so. Where there is not room, there is a small cost because the edge of somebody's land needs to be taken as the greenway is not going down through the middle. The way to deal with the rest of it, the bit from Claremorris to Collooney, is through route preservation. Realistically, that is not going to happen today or tomorrow, but it can be preserved by putting the greenway right down the middle of the track bed. I do not think any Deputy in this House should be concerned about a contract in Irish law not standing up. This is the House that makes the law.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I will finally turn to West on Track. What is its basic objection to the proposal from Mr. Mulligan?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I will just clarify something. The model used in the Bradley report was 35 years. We have no objection to the building of a greenway north from Claremorris or Athenry to Collooney and into Donegal or anywhere else.

What we are worried about is the issue Senator Kyne mentioned. We have to put in state-of-the-art greenways because talking about temporary greenways is ridiculous. If we are going to spend money putting in a greenway, it has to be a proper greenway. It has to be properly appointed and up to the highest standard, as if it will be there in perpetuity. The problem is that, if it is built on the rail track and at some point it is decided that a section of that railway, whether north or south of Claremorris, will be reopened, all that investment comes to naught. The railway would have to be put back and a greenway built again. What Mr. Mulligan said about having both would be a lot more sensible. While there would be additional cost in the beginning, it would save a lot of grief and angst, as well as campaigning and fighting-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is actually a proposal I put forward. We should be running greenways as well. How can that be done, technically? How much would it cost for everyone to coexist?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I will just clarify one thing. Reference was made to the situation between Mullingar and Athlone. Unfortunately, in that situation, the rail track was left in place but the greenway was built into the side of the alignment. The actual greenway is right beside the rail track so the rail track is useless. A train could not run on that because the greenway is built into the side of it. What should have been done, and there was plenty of room to do it, was build the greenway several metres to one side of the track and put a fence there. That way, the rail track could be used if and when Iarnród Éireann wanted it. I believe that is a strategic route that should be brought back into use in time. If there is goodwill and if county councils are prepared to be imaginative, greenways can be provided without any difficulty. However, giving up the rail track runs the risk that you will not get it back, irrespective of what is signed with Iarnród Éireann or anyone else.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is pretty clear. The arguments have been well articulated. There was public consultation in December and January. It was during a period when we were not in session so I felt it was important to have public hearings. That has been very fruitful to date. I call Deputy Canney.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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My apologies for being late. I was at another meeting and I have to rush off again because I am speaking on Leaders' Questions in the Dáil shortly.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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On this matter, I presume.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I have always been of the view that the subject matter we are discussing should not be divisive. We should all be doing this together. We are running a national greenway from Dublin to Galway and the route selection for Athlone to Galway is coming towards the end of its tether. The ambition for north Galway - Tuam, Athenry and so on - is to get a connection to the national greenway so it becomes relevant in the overall greenway strategy.

We also need to do the same with the rail network. As someone living in Tuam, I want to see it on the national rail network. There are obvious reasons for that. I also want Foynes opened up and rail going out there. I want an island where we can use all that potential to create regional development. We should not even be having this discussion. There are plenty of ways of delivering greenways, including complementary to a railway track, wherever that is. I was delighted to hear Mr. Mulligan say we should be delivering these things in tandem. We should all be working together. Our common purposes should be to deliver the infrastructure that is required in this region and all the other regions. There has been a debate for a number of years about a railway or greenway from Claremorris to Athenry. It is not something we should even be talking about. We should be discussing how to connect the region to the national rail network and the national greenway network. That is simply the way we should be doing it. I welcome the Chairman's statement that he sees how it can be done. We can do it in tandem and not spend money now that we will have to throw out in five or ten years if another decision is made.

Last Monday, I heard the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine talking about getting farmers to grow barley, oats and wheat. Some 20 or 30 years ago, we threw out the sugar beet industry and got rid of all the tillage in the region. Now we are trying to reinvent it. The ploughs and harrows that tilled that land have been rotting in ditches the last 30 years. We do not want the same thing to happen again by making decisions at a high level that do not take into account what the future might hold for us.

I am very taken by the approach today. I thank the Chairman for the time and I welcome everyone who has contributed. I am sorry I was not here for the whole meeting. We have to take a common-sense approach to all of this. We have to spend less time trying to outdo one another and more time putting things together so we can create all of what we need and are entitled to in the region. The west of Ireland has been designated by the European Union as being in transition, meaning we are not investing enough money or infrastructure in this region. We have an opportunity to do this, and to do it together. I hope today is a watershed moment for working together rather than trying to outdo one another.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy wish any of the witnesses to respond or was that just a statement?

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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There are three minutes left if anybody wants to make a comment. I am sorry for being abrupt in my approach but I have to-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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What the Deputy is saying is very pertinent. These things should not be mutually exclusive. There has to be a way that everyone can get to their destination, whether by rail or by foot.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I would make one point. At the end of this year, another rail review report will be presented to us. Either we trust in that process of deliberation, undertaken by people we all agree are experts in the area of rail and structured development, or we do not. They will arrive at firm conclusions, one hopes, about how we sweat the asset, to use a phrase that has been said repeatedly. We then need to make decisions. We do not need to be sitting around this table in ten years determining what happens to the western rail corridor and how to serve the towns and villages it passes through. It is incumbent on each and every one of us to take responsibility for that and not push it down the road for yet another rail review. We need to make a decision, by the end of 2023 at the latest, as to how exactly to use this asset for the benefit of the people who live along the route, and for the wider region of the west of Ireland. Indecision and kicking the can down the road are not acceptable and it will be shameful if that happens again.

Mr. Mike Devane:

When talking about doing something that is mutually beneficial and how that comes about, I would not like the point to be lost that we will look at our rail network and the land owned by the State to see what else we can do with it. That is particularly true with respect to utilities because we have a significant grid problem north of the Galway-Dublin line. Communications is the other issue. From a civil works point of view, if that were added to the mix, that investment would allow for a greenway to be built at very little cost, because all the infrastructure work would have to be done as well and other utilities and points of utility would be built onto the railway network, which would add to its significance and value. It is very important when doing the rail network that we create these scenarios. To go back to what I said earlier, we need some economic guidance here. We need to be talking about where we are going with this and what must be serviced in the medium term, that is, the next ten to 20 years, and what we are looking at in the long term. There are a lot of opportunities to create something here. I thank the committee for its time. We appreciate it.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Does Deputy Matthews wish to comment?

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I spoke earlier about planning and transport but I would narrow that down to roads and rail. There is a principle that investing in a road of two or three lanes creates induced demand and the road fills up, which is not good for our road system. However, that is exactly what we want in a public transport system. We have seen it with the likes of the western rail corridor. When it started off the figures were low but it is a successful railway. Linking that western corridor phase 2 would also be successful. We saw it in Dublin city when we linked Heuston Station to Connolly Station and that filled up. When you build it, they will come. The exact principle should apply to our public transport that we do not want for our road system.

We need to have a conversation about roads. One can have an entire political career in regard to the build of a road but not a railway because it is slower and it does not impact as many people as tangibly as a road. Bringing a road to one's community is a sign that the community has not been left behind. That takes longer in regard to rail. The price tags on many of our roads are massive. One has to question the benefit of the investment in those roads in terms of sustainable transport, air quality and climate emissions. If we were to flip that investment and put it into railway we would be creating a 100-year asset that would never need to be widened and on which the frequency and the capacity can be increased with small modifications. That would serve communities sustainably. They are the political decisions that need to be made.

I have heard much discussion today about political decisions. The decision is whether to concentrate on public transport or on roads. I am not against roads. They are important. It is important we maintain our road systems and build the bypasses, where necessary, but we have to look at the massive price tags on those huge road projects listed in the in the TII brochure. In terms of cost, we could do every one of its rail projects, including the western rail corridor, the Tipperary branch, the Wexford to Waterford branch and the freight system if we were to remove some of those road projects from the list. They are the political decisions that need to be made.

Do we make that investment in public transport over new roads? It is currently 2:1. Do we go to 3:1? That is a political question.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Matthews. The stakes in regard to this are very high for the west and the mid-west. There has been no discussion on the Shannon Foynes Port but Mr. Stacpoole has articulated the rail issue very well. The action plan will, it is hoped, take care of all of this. When it is published in a month or so, we will have a discussion on it. I want to return to a point made earlier. I take Mr. Devane's point that there is an asset there and in regard to the timeframe in terms of looking at it down the road. There are other factors. I spoke about the greenway, but there is also the transfer of power and so forth. The review is being done by the Department of Transport. This committee will make a submission to that review based on our public hearings. There is a particular question I want to get to the nub of. Various reports, including the EY report and others, have stated that financially it cannot be justified. In terms of the Bradley report, why was its analysis different? Was it to do with the terms of reference or the financial analysis?

Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

I will comment initially. The Bradley report looked at the actual cost of building the railway. It considered that the EY costings were exorbitant. The Chairman may recall that two weeks ago, the chief executive of Iarnród Éireann confirmed to this committee that the cost of rebuilding a mile of existing railway would be €1.5 million or €1.75 million. Obviously, the cost of signalling and so on would be in addition to that. Taking a round figure of €2 million or €2.5 million for the 35 miles from Athenry to Claremorris, you would not come in at €260 million, as EY did. The EY report factored in new rolling stock, which is not necessary because Iarnród Éireann will have an enormous amount of cascaded rolling stock once the new trains come on stream next year. That was an unnecessary cost. There are various other things in the report which, when analysed, showed that the costings were exorbitant. When one does a cost-benefit analysis, one has to examine issues like whether one is going to get value for money and how much money will have to be spent. Dr. Bradley put forward the answer, which was checked with people who are involved in railways both in this country and in Britain, that it can be built for €154 million. As I said previously, that is the cost of approximately three or four miles of motorway. That is a differential of well over €100 million.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Ó Raghallaigh. I have a question for Mr. Mulligan in regard to the greenway. Rail is hugely important in terms of that national link-up. Why is Mr. Mulligan so passionate about the railway being turned into a greenway?

Mr. John Mulligan:

I am not. I am asking the committee to take a pragmatic view. I am trying to put a timescale on all of this. Realistically, if a railway is reinstated on that land it will be from Athenry to Tuam, and Tuam to Claremorris in the medium term. The section from Claremorris north towards Collooney and Sligo is way down the road. Anybody who is honest about it will say it is way down the road in terms of build. The cheapest way of utilising existing funding is to build on the track. If the Government decides that it wants to build it alongside, that is fine, but it is an awful waste of money. The payback for doing it the cheap way is five years. It is 15 years for doing it the more expensive way. The Government is limiting its options.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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What does Mr. Mulligan mean by "payback?"

Mr. John Mulligan:

The payback to the community in terms of the return on the investment is five years. We have never been against the idea of building that railway. We are asking for recognition of the realities. Thus far, we have been correct in that the reports have found against the railway. To be fair, the Bradley report was commissioned by a rail lobby group. If Cadbury's commissioned on a report on whether sweets are good for people, one would expect it to say that they are. Somewhere between the two lies the real cost.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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That is a small bit unnecessary. I take the bona fides of everyone. It is not something that I like to hear. Mr. Mulligan is entitled to his bona fides but equally the other groups are as well. We can argue the toss, but I would ask that Mr. Mulligan take that back because it was unnecessary.

Mr. John Mulligan:

It is a personal view. I take it back.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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My next question is for Mr. Stacpoole. What would be the cost of the upgrade of the rail line from Limerick to Shannon Foynes Port?

Mr. Hassard Stacpoole:

It would depend on the standard to which it was to be restored. The cost to the port is floated to be between €30 million and €45 million. If it is to be used as a passenger capable railway as far as Adare, railway stations would be required. Even though they would be relatively simple stations, on the basis of the unit cost to which Irish Rail works the cost per station would be approximately €4.5 million. The final cost would depend on the number of stations put in. As a freight-only railway, as alluded to by Mr. Ó Raghallaigh, the cost would be approximately €1.5 million per mile multiplied by 26, which would leave little change from €45 million.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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My final question is for Mr. Lightfoot. If the Ballybrophy line is extended, obviously that would mean extra commuter services for Castleconnell, Birdhill and perhaps Annacotty. As a commuter line, what could it do?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

It would do two things. First, if the timetable is correct and there is a stop, in particular at Annacotty, it would serve UL and the industrial estate there. It can be used as a stop on the line which can connect to buses going into the city.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Has North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership included that level of detail in its submission to the committee?

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

Is the Chairman speaking about our submission to the committee in regard to the All Island Strategic Rail Review?

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

We have information in that.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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In his follow-up information to the committee, Mr. Lightfoot might encapsulate that at the end.

Mr. Graham Lightfoot:

We can do that.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I hope Mr. Mulligan understands the point I made earlier.

Mr. John Mulligan:

I was trying to make the point, although maybe not very well, that in making its decision the Government will rely not on a report by a lobby group but on the report it commissioned. There is a disparity between the two.

I also accept the point that was made that the EY report was probably a little bit-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Conservative.

Mr. John Mulligan:

Yes. That is why I said-----

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I made contact with colleagues to make certain that the greenway was included in today's debate because I want to look at everything in the round. I campaigned very hard to have Mr. Mulligan present.

Mr. John Mulligan:

I appreciate that.

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending today's engagement with the committee - from Western Rail Trail, Mr. John Mulligan; from West on Track, Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh and Mr. Peter Feeney; from the Atlantic Economic Corridor Business Forum, Mr. Mike Devane; from the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership: Mr. Graham Lightfoot, Mr. Edward Kelly and Mr. Hassard Stacpoole; and Mr. Richard Logue, managing director of RL Consultancy Limited. I thank the witnesses for attending and for being so forthright in their views. I never have an issue if views are held passionately. People today have expressed firm views. Deputy Cannon is correct that decisions will have to be made but, equally, it is impossible to make decisions unless people debate them and do the work on them.