Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With the draft transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, which was announced today, the people of Meath and the surrounding counties will be disappointed by the Government again but they will not be surprised. It has been revealed that building works on the Navan rail line that we have been demanding for decades will not commence until 2031 at the earliest. Given the shambolic record of this Government in delivering projects, it will most likely be a decade or more after that. We are in the middle of a climate emergency where building the Navan rail line could do more for the environment than any other project, taking thousands of cars off the road. Meath is the fifth largest county in the State, with 210,000 people, and it is growing. Navan is the largest town in Ireland not serviced by rail. Some 81% of people leaving Meath to work do so by car. I spoke to a lady the other day who asked me about the Navan rail line and when it might be built. She told me that every day she goes to work, leaving Meath for Dublin. She pays €6 every day on tolls, €15 a day on parking in Dublin, and €100 on fuel for the week. That is more than €200 a week just to get to work and then home. It is getting to the stage where people are not able to afford to get to work.

We are spending €2 billion a year on congestion. For many years, the people of Meath have been left behind by successive governments, spending up to ten extra hours a week out of their lives away from family, due to overly packed buses and traffic congestion. This is entirely unacceptable. The people of Meath and beyond will not accept a start date of 2031 for the Navan rail line. We have waited for long enough already. This is another example, in a climate emergency, of a Government that is out of touch, out of ideas and without foresight. It will fail to deliver the Navan rail line at its peril.

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