Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The national investment framework for transport in Ireland is our assessment of transport infrastructure and it is based on a hierarchy of supporting active travel first and trying to reuse existing assets second before getting down to new assets. This rail line is new in that it is laying new track and we do not have an existing line. We cannot use the other lines into Navan with circuitous routes via Louth so it is a significant investment. This would not be a cheap project. Like a lot of transport projects, we are looking at the cost estimates for what a project would be running into multiples of what people might have thought a few years ago. To cover the cost of that, it has to bring huge planning gain and housing development gain that makes the economics work. Included in that appraisal is a complete reassessment of the cost of carbon and other factors that one takes into account, while public transport is beneficial.

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