Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

The second anniversary of the launch of Transport 21 has just passed and I welcome the opportunity to update the House on the progress made and to assure Deputies that the Government remains committed to delivering the programme in full. Many major projects, particularly on the national road network, are being completed on time and on budget. Construction is under way on many important projects, particularly on railways and major inter-urban motorways, while others are at the statutory approval stage, at design and planning stage or at public consultation stage.

Transport 21 is a major undertaking. It is the first time a Government here has agreed a ten-year financial framework for any sector of our economy and is also the first time a capital investment commitment of more than €34 billion has been made. Transport 21 identifies and prioritises the projects that will be completed within the ten-year period to 2015. There will be more to do after that period has expired, and in the programme for Government we have committed to preparing a follow-on investment programme for the period after 2015.

Deputies will be aware of the details of the Transport 21 programme. What I would like to do now is to update the House on some specifics of the progress so far and provide an outline of the further progress that can be expected in the coming years. The inter-urban motorway programme, with which most people are familiar, aims to upgrade the five major inter-urban motorways by 2010, and is on target for completion on time and within budget. The first route, the M1 motorway from Dublin to the Border, was completed earlier this year with the opening of the Dundalk to Newry scheme. Work continues on the other four routes, the N6, the N7, the N8 and the N9. Of a total of 738 kilometres on this inter-urban network, 313 kilometres are now open to traffic and 308 kilometres are under construction. All of the remaining projects have passed the statutory approvals process.

Since the start of Transport 21, a total of 21 national road projects have been completed, and a further four should be completed by the end of this year. Among these are a number of significant projects such as the Dublin Port tunnel, the Naas Road widening, the Mitchelstown relief road, the Mullingar eastern bypass, the Arklow to Gorey bypass, the Cavan bypass and, most recently, the Charlestown and Castleblayney bypasses. Progress on road building is continuing at a very impressive pace and the NRA has 21 schemes under construction at present. The impact of these new and improved roads is evident and anybody who has travelled around the country in recent times will testify to the vast improvement in journey times.

Although we are only two years into the Transport 21 programme, significant improvements in public transport are also already apparent. Earlier this year, the first new railway station in Dublin city centre for more than 100 years was opened at Docklands.The new station facilitated the enhancement of services on the western suburban line and led, in particular, to a significant increase in commuter services to and from Clonsilla. January of this year saw the introduction into service by Iarnród Éireann of all 67 new intercity carriages which it had acquired for operation on the Dublin to Cork line. The new carriages have allowed the company to introduce hourly clockface timetabling services on the route, and this has proved very popular, with customer numbers on the route increasing by more than 14% on last year. Iarnród Éireann is now on target to carry more than 3 million passengers on the Dublin-Cork route in 2007.

New rolling stock for the other intercity routes will gradually be introduced into service over the next two years, starting with the Dublin to Sligo services. The original plan to buy 120 railcars was expanded to 183. Some 42 have been delivered to date and the remainder will be delivered by the end of next year. The Portlaoise train care depot, which will provide maintenance facilities for the new railcars, will be completed early in the new year.

Construction work has begun on a number of important rail projects, the Midleton rail line, the first phase of the western rail corridor, the Kildare route project and the Luas extensions to Cherrywood and the Docklands. The expansion of the trains on the Tallaght Luas line is well under way and will be completed by mid-2008, increasing capacity by 40%. Eighteen new trams are on order and delivery will start by the end of 2008.

Other major projects have not yet reached construction stage but are progressing through planning and approval stage.

A railway order application has been made to An Bord Pleanála for the first phase of the Navan line, from Clonsilla to Pace, and it is hoped that the oral hearing will be held before the year end.

The Railway Procurement Agency has made major progress on metro north. The preferred alignment has been selected and issues raised in public consultation have been addressed. The PPP procurement process is well under way and the short-listed consortia will be invited to tender for the project in 2008. Preliminary consultation has taken place with An Bord Pleanála and a railway order application for the project will also be submitted next year. The emerging preferred route for metro west was selected by the RPA earlier this year, following extensive public consultation.

larnród Éireann is also making excellent progress on its preparatory work for the rail interconnector between Heuston Station and the Docklands and it commenced public consultation on the alignment earlier this year.

The preferred alignment for the Luas line from Cherrywood to the Bray area has been selected and the remaining Luas extensions, phase 2 of the Navan line and phases 2 and 3 of the western rail corridor are at planning and design or public consultation stages. The RPA expects to be in a position to submit a railway order application for the Citywest extension before the end of the year.

Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus will take delivery of 435 new buses over the next two years. Approximately 266 of these will be deployed as replacement buses and 169 will be additional buses, increasing the fleet size and capacity of both agencies. Already, Dublin Bus has 50 additional buses in service, while Bus Éireann has 13.

I want to address some of the rather disingenuous recent claims in the media that the Transport 21 programme is suffering from insuperable delays due to the rescheduling of certain projects. The huge scale of the Transport 21 programme is such that adjustments to the timescale for individual projects is inevitable. The estimated completion dates for some Transport 21 projects have changed since the original indicative timetable was published in November 2005. The original timetable was designed to set challenging targets for the agencies and was drawn up in the Department at a time when many of the projects mentioned were only at the very early planning stage.

Inevitably, within a programme of this scale, it will be necessary to amend estimated completion dates as projects develop. Final completion dates for projects will only be determined when the planning process and contract negotiations have been concluded. So far, it has been necessary to revise the indicative completion dates for some of the projects because of circumstances arising before construction, while other projects have been delivered ahead of schedule.

The projects completed ahead of schedule include the N2 Ashbourne bypass, by four months; the N15 Bundoran to Ballyshannon route, by three months; the N8 Mitchelstown relief road, by three months; the N21 Castleisland to Abbeyfeale route, by three months; the N8 Rathcormac to Fermoy route, by eight months; the N25/27 Kinsale Road interchange, by six months; the N6 Tyrrellspass to Kilbeggan route, by six months; the N52 Mullingar to Belvedere route, by one month; and the M1 Dundalk to Newry route, by three months. The Docklands railway station was also completed two years ahead of the Transport 21 indicative timetable.

The necessary revisions to the programme timetable have arisen for a range of reasons including changes to the scope of the projects arising from public consultation — I am sure nobody in this House would want us to ignore the views put forward and that has caused delays in some of the projects — planning issues which obviously cause delays, procurement issues and archaeological difficulties. However, I am confident that the implementing agencies can work through these issues and that Transport 21 will be delivered, in its entirety, within the ten years of the programme.

Rescheduling the construction timetables of certain projects has not impacted on the drawdown of funds for the programme as a whole. As Transport 21 provides a ten-year financial framework, we have the flexibility to advance funds from projects which are delayed to those where there is the capacity to accelerate project delivery. This ensures the programme can deal with delays in some projects by accelerating others, thereby ensuring the overall delivery of the programme.

I am committed to ensuring that Transport 21 is delivered with absolute regard to value for money and industry best practice. My Department has launched a rolling audit programme to ensure best practice is followed and that all projects are compliant with the Department of Finance capital appraisal guidelines.

Robust monitoring procedures are in place, assisted by specialist consultants. There is regular progress reporting to Government. Information is also available to the public on the dedicated Transport 21 website, on individual agency websites, in the Transport 21 annual progress report and in regular newsletters.

My predecessor, Deputy Cullen——

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