Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

The Minister knows where I am coming from with this question. I was brought up 50 yards from a railway line so I have a great interest in railways.

I did not want to get involved but I cannot understand the decision taken on the location of a station outside of Dunshaughlin. When I was first elected and made spokesman on road safety and transport, I had a meeting about the railway line with Iarnród Éireann and was told how sensitive the issue was, the costs of building it and that enough passengers must travel on it. I was delighted when the line reached Dunboyne and then Navan. I cannot understand, however, why it has been taken away from Dunshaughlin. No one has explained how building a railway station outside a town is the way forward, it must be within the town. The people of Ratoath, Ashbourne and Dunshaughlin are being left out in the cold, it is a waste of time if we are not joined up in Dunshaughlin.

The M3 is being built with two tolls on it, which is stupid, because those from Kells will not drive on it because it is too expensive. The railway line to Navan is going down the old route but that line was used 70 or 80 years ago to bring fodder to Dublin when Dunshaughlin was a very small town. The people of Dunshaughlin and County Meath in general cannot understand why this route has been chosen for the railway line. Can the Minister explain to the people of Dunshaughlin, Ratoath, Ashbourne, Screen, Curragha and the rest of County Meath why the line is going in a straight line and cutting out these people?

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