Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Roads Bill 2014 which will allow for the merger of the Rail Procurement Agency, RPA, and the National Roads Authority, NRA. The Bill provides for the dissolution of the RPA and the transfer of its functions to the NRA to form the new transport infrastructure service. I welcome this move. The reduction in the number of State agencies was a key commitment of the Government and the fact we have 40 fewer State agencies is evidence progress is being made. This is a significant reduction in the space of just three years. It is worth noting the serious efforts made to reduce staff numbers in the NRA and the RPA in recent years. This has led to a combined reduction from 435 to a staff level of 290. This is a significant reduction in staff numbers of almost one third which leads to reduced costs and increased efficiency.

With regard to quality delivery of service to the public, the one-stop shop model is the way to go. It will lead to a streamlined and more effective service in future. In this regard the new transport infrastructure service will benefit by having a range of skills, technical expertise and experience in a range of areas including transport planning, project management and engineering design and advice. The merger will result in long-term savings of €3 million to €4 million per annum to the Exchequer. In the current climate this is very welcome.

The Bill will see the dissolution of the RPA. Unfortunately it has no relevance in my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan because we do not have a rail service. There is no rail service in any part of Monaghan. The question still remains whether the railways could have survived. The Great Northern Railway, which operated the rail service, was dissolved in 1958 and its assets were divided between the Ulster Transport Authority and Córas Iompair Éireann. The bulk of the Great Northern Railway network was closed and only the Dublin to Belfast line remains. Following this move, by 1960 various towns such as Clones, Cavan, Carrickmacross and Monaghan lost their rail services. Many are of the opinion the services emanating from Clones, Dundalk and Dublin could have survived, as with little change the track could have been altered to create a through line between Dublin and Clones via Cavan. The Clones to Dundalk section could have been as viable as some of the services to parts of the west of the country, but the political opinion of the day was there was no future in the railways, and lifting the permanent way was more or less completed by December 1959.

The majority of the original track has been subsumed into agricultural land but the numerous railway bridges, stations and unused track dotted throughout the County Monaghan landscape are reminders of what we have lost. Visitors to the region regularly comment on the unusual situation that there is no rail service to Cavan or Monaghan and that it is a great pity the service is gone. Will the Minister of State consider carrying out a feasibility study on the viability of extending the rail network to include counties Cavan and Monaghan? In this regard I ask them to liaise with his Northern Ireland counterpart because the railway line would have continued to Donegal through the North of Ireland.

The lack of a rail network to this Border region obviously means people there are hugely dependent on the haulage industry for the export of goods. In this regard, I am greatly concerned that the new lorry road user charge that will come into effect on 1 April in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland will have a significant effect on those Irish road hauliers who use roads in Northern Ireland. I raised this matter with the Minister earlier this week and I welcome his intention to raise the issue again with his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Stephen Hammond. This charge will have particularly serious consequences for the hauliers in counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal who cross the Border on a daily basis and hopefully, a satisfactory solution can be found on an all-Ireland basis.

In conclusion, I again welcome this Bill, which marks a further step in the Government's reform agenda of tackling the proliferation of State agencies and quangos.

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