Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The case for the western rail corridor has been well made. All the signs of a poorly designed transport system are visible to hard-pressed motorists trying to negotiate their way into and out of their workplaces in every city and provincial town every day of the week, every week of the year. The sharp increase in car ownership is destined to continue and, irrespective of what happens in the road building programme, nobody expects roads alone to solve traffic problems.

To achieve viable regional and spatial development, few projects could bring as much economic, social, cultural and environmental benefit to the area stretching from Cork to Limerick to Sligo as the western rail corridor. The western rail corridor committee has applied the litmus test under several headings to the project and on all fronts it passes the evaluation with flying colours.

Most members of the public do not realise the daily traffic flow at Kinnegad, County Westmeath, where the Sligo traffic joins up on the Galway route to Dublin, amounts to 21,599 average daily journeys. However, 120 miles west at Claregalway, near Galway city, this figure jumps to an astonishing 30,000 journeys under the same measurement.

The potential service area for the western rail corridor includes the Sligo gateway, Knock International Airport, the Knock Shrine, large-scale industrial development, including that at Oranmore and Athenry with up to 5,000 new skilled jobs planned, the Galway gateway, including Galway Airport, linked to Shannon Airport and the Limerick gateway. We do not even know what the area will get out of decentralisation, if anything.

Can one imagine the importance of a rail link running down as the backbone of the entire BMW area when planning new housing estates? For the west, it would be similar to a Luas type train service, with the same effect on the lives of the people of the west as the Luas now has on the lives of many people in Dublin.

International consultants, Faber Maunsell, commissioned by Iarnród Éireann, estimated that the cost of opening the line would be €366 million, which compares favourably with the strategic rail review figure of €310 million using 2002 prices. In the language of the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, where €150 million is small beer, this amounts to two beers. For the price of two beers, we could have a new railway line.

An appraisal of the benefits of the corridor was conducted by a sub-group under the direction of the Rail Procurement Agency. It addressed sustainable regional development, accessibility and social inclusion, interregional economy, environment and quality of life, implementation, efficiency, stakeholder and public support and freight and commercial operation. Out of 36 parameters, 33 were found to be either beneficial or strongly beneficial. The investigation showed it was beneficial on 16 counts, strongly beneficial on 15 counts, neutral in one instance and negative on only two counts. One negative was in regard to the need for multiple handling of certain consignments of rail freight and the other concerned the possibility of some objections to the redevelopment from adjacent landlords.

Another group looked at the demand for rail travel. Research was carried out on the take-up if an efficient train service at an affordable price was introduced. It suggested the bus and road traffic volumes on the Sligo-Claremorris road, 2.5 million passenger journeys per annum, with 3.5 million extra between Claremorris and Lough George and a further 6 million between Lough George and Galway, represent a pool of 12 million current passenger journeys from which to draw rail passengers. It is estimated the railway enjoys approximately 10% market share of the traffic on the Athlone bypass annually. It is reasonable to believe this type of market share could be taken off the road and onto the trains under similar circumstances.

The Government has given an undertaking on several occasions that it would approve the western rail corridor. Several Ministers and several commissions later, there is still no approval. The least the Government can do, given it has decided to put a new railway line from Dublin to Kildare, announced last week, is to approve the restoration of the western rail corridor forthwith.

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