Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On rail services, I am not in a position to make announcements today. Decisions will be made on Friday and then announced. Speaking as a former transport Minister and somebody who is interested in the issue, especially railways, heavy railways, in particular, are very expensive to build and once they are built, if they do not carry significant passenger numbers, they are very expensive to operate. When one is prioritising spending on rail services, the first thing one needs to prioritise is safety. A lot of the investment needs to go into existing rail lines to improve safety. The second thing one needs to do is deal with congestion. Some train lines are very heavily used, while others are not. We need to reduce congestion and increase frequency and line speeds on the heavily congested lines. If one is to build new additional train lines, they need to be subjected to a proper appraisal. I refer to such things as a net present value and a benefit to cost ratio. The commitment on the western rail corridor in the programme for Government is not to build or complete it but to carry out such an appraisal of such a benefit to cost ratio. The last time it was done it came out negatively at a cost of 100 against six - 100 being the cost and six the benefit.

Most rail projects come out around 100 to 80. It did not come out of that well and had a negative net present value over 30 years. Indeed, that turned out to be optimistic. Passenger numbers are now half what they were projected to be at this point. They were supposed to be 200,000 after five years. Moreover, the cost of building came in higher.

However, that is not to say that we cannot examine it again or examine doing further sections of it, but we would of course have to do full and proper appraisal and cost-benefit analysis. It would not be justifiable to proceed with a project in full knowledge of how the assessment came out. I imagine Deputies will agree that is the right approach to proper planning and use of taxpayers' money.

Reference was made to social housing. Housing is of course going to be comprehended by the ten-year investment package. Among the things committed to are things that already exist to a certain extent. These include a major ramp-up in the amount of social housing and the amount of public housing owned by local authorities or on behalf of local authorities. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, through his leadership and that of his Department, increased the social housing stock by 7,000 last year through several methods. There were three times as many direct builds last year than in the year before it. Other measures include acquiring properties from developers and other private owners, bringing voids back into operation and long-term leasing. Obviously, that will have to continue and escalate. The Minister has also made a proposal relating to cost rental whereby the State or State actors can build apartments and houses and offer them for rent.

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