Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Regular updates have been made on different aspects of Transport 21. On some occasions they referred to roads and on other occasions they referred to rail. Regarding the mainline rail projects referred to by Deputy Kenny, most of the intercity carriages on the Dublin to Cork line have been delivered. When the trains have completed their commissioning process they will enter in service progressively. As I understand it, most of the work has been finished on that line.

The new high specification railcars on the Dublin to Ballina, Westport, Galway, Limerick, Tralee and Waterford lines are in place. The delivery of 150 railcars is due to commence at the beginning of January 2007 for the Rosslare and Sligo lines. That work will continue throughout the year. The introduction of these railcars will see the removal from service of all of the older stock and the provision of improved service frequencies on a phased basis on all intercity routes. Work on the first part of the western rail corridor is to start in 2007 but I am not sure when. The planning and other work on it is going ahead. The RPA has submitted applications for railway orders for the projects on the extensions from Sandyford to Cherrywood and from Connolly Station to the docklands. The Deputy did not ask about the metro lines. Most of the projects he mentioned are either well advanced or under way. Under the national development plan and Transport 21, CIE has been given very large budgets. It has much challenging rail work ahead in the next few years. I agree with the Deputy that the more work that can be done on the rail the better. There is an hourly rail service to Cork during the day and also to the west. This should increase the numbers travelling by rail. I have not seen the provisional figures for this year but I understand the figures for 2006 show a huge increase and that there will be a further huge increase in 2007 with the availability of the new stock for a full year. There has been a substantial improvement.

See this speech in context