Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It would make sense to use the existing rail lines but we will have to await the completion of the studies in order to ascertain the viability of the various issues. When I met representatives of the groups involved, they told me they knew there were issues concerning the viability of all the lines. It is important to be supportive of it. As we all know, rail makes enormous sense and that is why we have been putting a huge amount of resources into railway infrastructure.

The purpose of the ten-year envelope is to try to get order into the planning process. We are spending twice the EU average on infrastructure and have argued strongly about the need for this with the European Commission. We will do so again in the next round, even though we will probably get far less money. We had underspends for decades and nobody solved them. I have argued that the country did not have the money at the time and I have given the figures to the European Commission. While we are spending more now, we need to do so.

We are not getting the required level of private sector investment in these projects. They will argue all day about what would happen if the public-private partnership system was easier to implement. To be frank, however, having listened to all the arguments, I do not think they want to get into PPPs. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, is looking at this matter afresh to see what other way we can approach it. Even in the United Kingdom they are pulling back on public-private partnerships. With less money from the European Union and less private sector involvement — unless they change their attitude to these issues — the State will have to fund this. The ten-year programme makes logical sense and obviously within that programme there will be priorities. The necessary infrastructure includes railways and linking roads to the main towns, including those in the west.

We are endeavouring to finish some of the very big infrastructural projects which will release funds. We are getting very close to the end of the Dublin to the Border route on the Dundalk line, which will be totally finished at Easter. The Dundalk by-pass at Ballymascanlon is underway. The Dublin Port tunnel will finish around Christmas, although it may go into early 2006 for testing. However, we are on the last year of big expenditure for that project. The same is the case with the road going south. As the Minister, Deputy Cowen, said, some of those resources should then be released. That is why the decisions on half the projects this year are in the BMW region — some seven of the 12 projects.

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