Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The case for the western rail corridor has been well made. All the signs of a poorly designed transport system are visible to hard-pressed motorists trying to negotiate their way into and out of their workplaces in every city and provincial town every day of the week, every week of the year. The sharp increase in car ownership is destined to continue and, irrespective of what happens in the road building programme, nobody expects roads alone to solve traffic problems.

To achieve viable regional and spatial development, few projects could bring as much economic, social, cultural and environmental benefit to the area stretching from Cork to Limerick to Sligo as the western rail corridor. The western rail corridor committee has applied the litmus test under several headings to the project and on all fronts it passes the evaluation with flying colours.

Most members of the public do not realise the daily traffic flow at Kinnegad, County Westmeath, where the Sligo traffic joins up on the Galway route to Dublin, amounts to 21,599 average daily journeys. However, 120 miles west at Claregalway, near Galway city, this figure jumps to an astonishing 30,000 journeys under the same measurement.

The potential service area for the western rail corridor includes the Sligo gateway, Knock International Airport, the Knock Shrine, large-scale industrial development, including that at Oranmore and Athenry with up to 5,000 new skilled jobs planned, the Galway gateway, including Galway Airport, linked to Shannon Airport and the Limerick gateway. We do not even know what the area will get out of decentralisation, if anything.

Can one imagine the importance of a rail link running down as the backbone of the entire BMW area when planning new housing estates? For the west, it would be similar to a Luas type train service, with the same effect on the lives of the people of the west as the Luas now has on the lives of many people in Dublin.

International consultants, Faber Maunsell, commissioned by Iarnród Éireann, estimated that the cost of opening the line would be €366 million, which compares favourably with the strategic rail review figure of €310 million using 2002 prices. In the language of the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, where €150 million is small beer, this amounts to two beers. For the price of two beers, we could have a new railway line.

An appraisal of the benefits of the corridor was conducted by a sub-group under the direction of the Rail Procurement Agency. It addressed sustainable regional development, accessibility and social inclusion, interregional economy, environment and quality of life, implementation, efficiency, stakeholder and public support and freight and commercial operation. Out of 36 parameters, 33 were found to be either beneficial or strongly beneficial. The investigation showed it was beneficial on 16 counts, strongly beneficial on 15 counts, neutral in one instance and negative on only two counts. One negative was in regard to the need for multiple handling of certain consignments of rail freight and the other concerned the possibility of some objections to the redevelopment from adjacent landlords.

Another group looked at the demand for rail travel. Research was carried out on the take-up if an efficient train service at an affordable price was introduced. It suggested the bus and road traffic volumes on the Sligo-Claremorris road, 2.5 million passenger journeys per annum, with 3.5 million extra between Claremorris and Lough George and a further 6 million between Lough George and Galway, represent a pool of 12 million current passenger journeys from which to draw rail passengers. It is estimated the railway enjoys approximately 10% market share of the traffic on the Athlone bypass annually. It is reasonable to believe this type of market share could be taken off the road and onto the trains under similar circumstances.

The Government has given an undertaking on several occasions that it would approve the western rail corridor. Several Ministers and several commissions later, there is still no approval. The least the Government can do, given it has decided to put a new railway line from Dublin to Kildare, announced last week, is to approve the restoration of the western rail corridor forthwith.

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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The western rail corridor is the name given to a proposed rail link that would connect Sligo, Galway, Limerick and Cork. The corridor was one of more than 150 proposals evaluated as part of the strategic rail review which was undertaken on behalf of the Department of Transport and published in 2003. It was not included in the review's recommended investment strategy because, among other things, it was not supported by complementary land use and settlement strategies at that time. The Minister for Transport has stated before that such strategies are essential for the viability of any public transport project because they provide the basis for the travel demand that would justify the level of capital investment, put at approximately €400 million in current terms.

The western rail corridor was, however, identified by the review as fitting particularly well with the aims of the national spatial strategy, particularly in terms of balanced regional development. To explore fully the issues surrounding the development of this corridor and to allow an opportunity for all aspects of the proposal to be examined, the then Minister for Transport established a working group in 2004. This group, chaired by Mr. Pat McCann, group chief executive of Jurys Doyle hotel group, provided a forum for the proponents of the western rail corridor to put their case to the chairman of the group, as well as to Iarnród Éireann, CIE and the Department of Transport. The working group met in plenary session on four occasions after its establishment. The group and its sub-groups have now concluded their deliberations and the chairman of the working group delivered his report to the Minister for Transport on 10 May last.

The chairman's report identifies five main sections of the proposed western rail corridor and proposes that much of it be restored on a phased basis subject to various conditions and reservations. The report recommends that a line survey be carried out on the Athenry to Ennis section with a view to re-opening it in the short term. This would provide direct rail links between Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Cork and implement one of the main national spatial strategy objectives of creating greater linkages between these four cities. While the Athenry to Galway section is not strictly part of the western rail corridor, the report recommends that improvements on this section would be necessary for Galway-Limerick services to become a reality. The report suggests that a commuter rail service between Athenry and Galway could also be developed relatively quickly and inexpensively.

According to the report's recommendations, the next section to be considered for restoration should be the Tuam to Athenry section. It notes that the introduction of a rail service between Tuam and Galway city would serve to strengthen linkages and advance the objectives of the national spatial strategy for the region. Restoring this section would also provide connections to Dublin-Galway intercity train services and the cities and towns to the south via the Athenry-Ennis section. The report concludes that in the short term a commuter service to Galway should be introduced.

The report notes that the restoration of the line from Tuam to Claremorris would link up the western rail corridor with the Castlebar to Westport and Ballina lines and thereby link these Mayo hub-towns with Galway and the cities in Munster. The development of rail freight could also make this section more viable and the report therefore recommends that a thorough study to quantify the potential for rail freight in the region be initiated.

The section from Claremorris to Collooney would be by far the most expensive to restore, accounting for 54% of the restoration costs of the entire line. As things stand, the report finds that the case for its restoration is weak. This section is characterised by low population densities with few towns of reasonable size. However, the report acknowledges that restoration of this section would connect, by rail, the Sligo gateway with the other gateways and hubs on the western and southern seaboards. For this reason, it recommends that the section should be preserved in its entirety, that Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo county councils should make the necessary arrangements as soon as possible and that the viability of restoring this section should be reviewed in three years to see whether the objective conditions for line restoration have changed.

The report also recommends that an implementation group be established to oversee the implementation of the report. The full report is available on the Department of Transport's website.

Upon receipt of Mr. McCann's report, the Minister for Transport requested his officials to examine the content to ensure that it is fully appraised in advance of the final preparation of the multi-­annual capital investment framework for transport, as it is in that context that decisions will be made on the future of the western rail corridor. I understand that the framework is being finalised at present and the Minister expects to be in a position to bring his proposals to Government shortly.