Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, for being here. This has been a very long-running saga in the west, and in my constituency of Galway East in particular. What is deeply disturbing for those of us who are ambitious about the future of east Galway, and in particular its towns and villages, is that there is a piece of public infrastructure that has now been left to rot for more than 14 years. It has no function or purpose in serving the economic and social needs of the people of Galway East. It has been left in abeyance for a very long time.

There have been efforts on the part of two particular cohorts of people in Galway East to convince numerous different Ministers for Transport of the merits of putting this piece of very valuable public infrastructure back into use.

One group has been campaigning actively for the re-opening of a rail service on the line connecting Athenry to Claremorris and they have made many arguments as to why that is a good idea. Key to their argument is the fact that this is a piece of public infrastructure that could serve a useful purpose, but it has been left to decay instead. The second group emerged over the last ten years or so. It campaigns for the development of a greenway. It looks with a great degree of envy at the success of places like Westport to Achill, Waterford to Dungarvan, the recently opened Limerick to Rathkeale and Kerry. There are other locations that have already been identified on the same western rail corridor, such as a section of Collooney in County Sligo in that particular region. As I said, they are looking on with a great degree of envy at the significant transformation that communities have experienced in these locations in terms of the injection of badly needed economic activity and tourism activity in particular into these areas. As well as that, and this is often forgotten, there are huge societal benefits to the people who live in these areas for their health, well-being and being able to engage as a family in walking or cycling activities in safe and welcoming environments.

These two campaigns have been on the go for a very long time. We had hoped that by this point a significant decision would have been made about the future use of the western rail corridor. The Minister, Deputy Éamon Ryan, instigated what he described as an all-island rail review well over a year ago. Despite our best efforts, as well as the efforts of those campaigns in encouraging the publication of this review and in allowing for the publication to unlock the potential of this piece of infrastructure, we are no further on. It is my understanding, and the Minister has made it quite clear at times, that it will not be possible to publish the review until such time as the Northern Ireland Executive is re-established, because he and whoever the incoming Minister responsible for transport would be able jointly to announce the publication. I do not think that will happen for quite a while to come, unfortunately. I urge the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, to urge the Minister to publish this document to allow for planning to begin for the development of a critically important piece of public infrastructure. It serves no one now and it has weeds growing up through it, but it has such significant potential to transform east Galway and the west of Ireland.

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