Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Conway Walsh and O'Rourke for giving us the chance to discuss this matter this evening. Deputy Connolly quoted an tAthair Micheál Mac Gréil, to whom the Bradley report is dedicated. I will come back to the report in the context of the Minister of State's remarks. I want to speak about another priest, Monsignor James Horan, who, 40 years ago, showed how it is done. In the face of the same kind of opposition and the same kind of sticking its head in the sand from the Department of Transport as we have today, especially the permanent side of it, he developed Knock Airport. He had a phrase which is often quoted by our colleague, Deputy Ó Cuív. He referred to the policy of the Department as "MAD", meaning maximum administrative delay. Keep putting it on the long finger and hopefully it will go away. Tonight there is an all-party motion saying we are not going away. We are not going away on the western rail corridor. We are not going away on road projects such as the N26 or on proper regional development. We do not want sticking plasters but ambitious stuff that makes a difference. That is what is laid out in the Bradley report. I tell the Minister of State it does not matter who commissioned it. Its findings will stand up to any independent analysis. In that it is unlike the EY report commissioned by the Department at a cost to the taxpayer of €500,000, which has many flaws within it.

The context of waiting for an all-Ireland rail review for a project that has been reviewed so often is typical of the maximum administrative delay strategy. This works. It works not just in the context of the western rail corridor and the extension of the existing corridor to County Mayo and beyond, hopefully, but in the context of the all-island Atlantic economic corridor. If we are serious about regional development we will build a ballast to the east right from County Derry to County Kerry. It would be all-island and all-coastal, with a spine going down through it that has rail at its centre. This would be rail that is sustainable. It would be rail not just for freight but for passengers too. This will allow people to move off-road into a proper commuter rail service linking the west. It will link the cities of Galway and Sligo to communities for hospital services, education and day-to-day living.

That is the kind of sustainability we should seek in the climate action plan yet it seems the west coast is to be the location for offshore wind and onshore wind. Whatever kind of wind farm you are going for will be located in the west. We will be expected to provide the energy but we are at the end of the queue when it comes to the benefits. These are kind of the benefits I am referring to. The western rail corridor will allow, through the Atlantic economic corridor, the infrastructure of wind farms to be moved by rail not road. As I have said, it will encourage people to go off-road and use public transport for their day-to-day work. It fits all the headings this Government is about and last week's climate action plan is about, yet we keep delaying it. We keep saying we will have another review. We cannot have any more reviews. I am calling for the preliminary work to begin. It is not a choice between the rail corridor and a greenway. Both can exist perfectly well alongside each other. It seems again we are being offered greenways all over the west but tell that to the second biggest producer of Coca-Cola concentrate in the world. Tell that to one of the biggest healthcare manufacturing sectors in the world, which we have in County Mayo. Ask them do they want to export their stuff on a greenway or do they want to do it on a proper road or on a proper railway. Real regional development is about putting that infrastructure in place with ambition and respect and without any further delays.

I join Deputy Connolly in paying tribute to an tAthair Micheál Mac Gréil; a priest, a sociologist and somebody with no commercial interest in rail but who has led this campaign. I pay tribute to West-On-Track, including Colmán Ó Raghallaigh and people like him who are leading it in spite of so many hits. They are in the spirit of Monsignor Horan. Ireland West Airport Knock has developed into a facility that employed 170 or so people before Covid with over 800,000 passengers. The economic benefit of it still has not been fully reached. Why do we have to keep fighting? Why do we have to keep constantly harassing? These are things we are entitled to. The only change I would make to this motion is that I think we need an all-party committee on the implementation of the NDP. It covers so many different projects and Departments. It suits those who do not want to see progress to have it siloed in committee after committee. One overall Oireachtas committee on the implementation of this plan would see it delivered once and for all.

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