Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for the opportunity to address this matter in the House. I appreciate their concerns for their own areas and their wish to see delivery of what will be a superb piece of infrastructure, not just for their constituencies, but for the entire city and, indeed, the entire country. Ironically, during last year's consultation on the emerging preferred route for MetroLink, northside issues initially dominated the headlines, and I do not recall southside Deputies at the time calling for the northside to be bypassed. In seriousness, though, I welcome the opportunity to update the House on the development of the MetroLink project.

As we are all aware, the national development plan, NDP, which was launched last year by Government as part of Project Ireland 2040, included the proposed development of MetroLink, linking Sandyford in south Dublin with Swords in north Dublin. There is a long history of a proposed north-south metro service in the Dublin area, with references to be found in the then Dublin Transportation Office's A Platform for Change document in 2000 and even before that. A project known as metro north was granted planning permission just as the economic and financial crisis hit. The current statutory transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, published in 2016, stated its objective to provide for a new metro north reaching from the city centre to Swords via the airport. It also stated its objective to provide for a metro south, which would extend southwards the new metro north and, importantly, a long-term, sustainable solution to the capacity issues inherent in the capability of a Luas-type service to operate along the green line into the medium and long term. In developing proposals for the national planning framework, NPF, and the NDP, the NTA and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, combined these metro projects into MetroLink. Both the NPF and the NDP indicate Government's policy support for the development of this type of solution to both medium- and long-term public transport issues.

A metro service will provide a high-capacity, high-frequency corridor linking critical destinations across the city such as Swords, the airport, DCU, Ballymun and the city centre and all along the existing green line corridor. It will offer high-quality interchange with the commuter rail network and with our improved bus network, which will be delivered under BusConnects in the years ahead. It is because of all these fantastic advantages that I can understand the Deputies' wish for MetroLink to progress in their areas first and foremost. I have no doubt but that they made these very points as part of the public consultation process which took place last year on the emerging preferred route. Since then, the NTA and TII have been considering the thousands of submissions received with a view to developing what will be known as the preferred route. I am happy to inform the House that a further round of public consultation will take place shortly on this "preferred route". The preferred route will reflect the NTA's and TII's consideration of the issues raised during the extensive consultations held so far and allow members of the public to express their views again on the proposal.

The Deputies can understand that it would be wholly inappropriate for me to comment on particular route alignments while work by the relevant statutory agencies is under way. I encourage the Deputies to engage with the public consultation process when it opens again shortly. We are at an exciting time in shaping public transport for the years and decades to come as we deliver upon the ambition of the NPF and the NDP. I would like to think all of us in this House can agree that we need to improve continually our public transport system and support Government's efforts in this regard, as outlined under the NPF and NDP.

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