James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Transport, I thank Deputy Whitmore for raising the important issue of public transport for Wicklow.

Improving public transport services and infrastructure is central to improving citizens’ quality of life and addressing our climate action challenge, and this Government is committed to a fundamental change in the nature of transport in Ireland. The National Transport Authority has statutory responsibility for transport planning in the greater Dublin area, GDA, including County Wicklow. The NTA's greater Dublin area transport strategy, which was approved by the Minister for Transport in January 2023, sets out a framework for transport investment across the region over a 20-year period from 2022 to 2042, and it provides a clear statement of transport planning policy for counties Meath, Dublin, Louth, Kildare and Wicklow.

I consider it useful to clarify the planned proposals related to the DART+ Coastal South project and the current position of the proposals and related issues. Modelling undertaken by the NTA for the DART+ programme related to facilitating increased rail services on the Rosslare to Dublin line. This includes an option that would allow Rosslare train services to interchange with the DART at Wicklow or Greystones to connect seamlessly to DART services to or from the heart of Dublin. It must be stressed that this is an infrastructural modelling exercise, and the NTA has advised that no decision has yet been made to alter services on the Rosslare line.

As a Government, we need to provide more options to people in order that they can make the switch to sustainable mobility and within the greater Dublin area, work on the DART+ programme is continuing so it can become part of those options. It is also intended under the GDA transport strategy to further expand the DART to Wicklow town. Extending the DART to Wicklow is also supported in the all-island strategic rail review, which was published in July this year. Design work is ongoing at present by the NTA on the DART+ Coastal South project to plan for the enhanced DART service level from Dublin to Greystones, and a public consultation will be undertaken with regard to those proposals shortly.

In addition, initial planning-design work is currently ongoing by the NTA to establish the feasibility of operating an hourly DART service to and from Wicklow town and Dublin using battery-electric trains that could operate along an unelectrified section of the railway between Greystones and Wicklow. Under this arrangement, one DART per hour arriving at Greystones would be a battery-electric train, which would be able to continue further south along the unelectrified line and terminate at Wicklow town train station, with the same approach in the opposite direction.

Beyond DART services, Bray will be served by BusConnects bus services in the near future. Phase 6a of the network redesign will roll out in early December with the new 24-hour E spine connecting Bray with the city centre and the local L routes connecting Bray and its environs. In addition to the new services, the NTA has submitted a planning application for the Bray to city centre core bus corridor to An Bord Pleanála.

An Bord Pleanála has not yet made a decision on this application. In terms of light rail, a Luas line to Bray is one of the four Luas extensions identified in the greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022-2042 and the development of the Luas line from Bray to the city centre is part of the strategy's medium-term proposals for development and delivery within 2031-2036.

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