Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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61. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the progress made in considering the all-island strategic rail review since the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly; when it is hoped to approve it; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22041/24]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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What progress has been made in considering the strategic rail review since the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly? Will the Minister give some indication of when this rail review, which everyone has been waiting for for a long time, will finally be published?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I will not read out the written response because it is very similar to what Deputy Marian Harkin would have heard only a few minutes ago.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, I was chairing a committee at that stage.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It will be available to the Deputy in written format in any case. If I can answer his question directly, the strategic rail review has been very public for over a year and a half. We had to go to a strategic environmental assessment. We decided that, in advance of the Assembly returning in the North, we would publish it because we had to go into that public consultation, so the details are very clear. That consultation process has finished. In the coming weeks, we will, in my mind, subject to our Northern colleagues also agreeing it, be able to publish and then really focus on the delivery end. We need to deliver now. To do that, we have employed the European Investment Bank, EIB, to do a review of how we would prioritise which projects to deliver.

I will focus on one aspect of this which I think the Deputy will be interested in, namely, the western rail corridor. It is probably one of the more contentious elements because in the past, and up to this date, when you asked the system if we should reopen the western rail corridor, it would say it does not make economic sense and the business case is desperate. I think it was looked at with too narrow a focus, just at passenger rail services, which we need to reintroduce on the line, but it did not take into account the potential development of rail freight as an option the country. That would make the economic case for the western rail corridor, not just on the section from Athenry to Claremorris, but a much wider western rail corridor, running all the way from Ballina, down the west coast to Limerick and then to Waterford and Wexford. In that context, it makes strategic sense.

I hope to make that case in the coming months and to move the project up the prioritisation order as part of our balanced regional development and economic revival of the west. I will do so because I believe industries will want to come where there is a decarbonising option and high-quality public transport and rail freight services which allow economic development to occur on the western rail corridor. That is not the conventional wisdom and it is not commonly accepted, but I believe that argument needs to be had and made in the coming months so we give a clear signal that this economic project will go ahead with priority.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is a relatively recent invention of Government that the purely economic case of everything has to be justified. There are many things we do in society for societal good that do not make economic sense but they make social sense, regional balance sense and common sense, which is becoming very uncommon. Will the Minister outline the procedures? He has outlined the first one, where he has asked the European Investment Bank to look at this. Will he outline the procedures we will have between now and making firm decisions that various projects are going ahead under the strategic rail review?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I agree with the Deputy fully. I would add the environmental issue to his list of common-sense considerations we have to take into account. The opponents of investing in rail freight argue that it is not economic and does not make sense, but they do not answer the question of how they intend to decarbonise our haulage system and do not take that into account as a key strategic objective that we have to meet, as well as the other ones the Deputy mentioned with regard to better balanced regional development, social advancement and so on. That is the key issue that will get the western rail corridor over the line. The EIB project is short. It is to set out an implementation plan for the strategy. It will be concluded quickly. That has not stopped us. I am focusing on the western rail corridor because I know the Deputy has a personal interest in it and has been committed to it for a long time. That has not stopped us, this spring, from starting to clear the line.

It is similar to what we did with the reopening of the Shannon-Foynes line. We started to get a much better assessment of the state of the line and what would be required to reopen it. We have not just sat and waited for reports to conclude. We have started to take action. What you realise when you do that is that the line is in a much better state than people might think. The planning obstacles are much less compared with other projects because it is within the curtilage of an existing Irish Rail corridor. It is much easier and quicker to restore such lines than people previously thought. We saw that in Foynes and I think we can see the same with the western rail corridor.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I provided funding of, I think, €5 million to clear the line from Collooney, all the way down to the CLÁR area boundary, which was south of Claremorris, back in 2006. What we need now is construction. We know the line is intact. We have been trying to explain that for a long time. It is intact from Collooney. That section of the line was cleared last year, but perennially clearing the line is not building the line.

I have an interesting question for the Minister. The biggest cost inhibitor is what is called building inflation. Can the Minister tell me what building inflation has been since the strategic rail review started three or four years ago? What would it cost to do the work now compared with what it would have cost if we had done it two years ago, with the rail review, strategic process and so on only taking two years? The reality is that the thing that is running away with this all the time, as the Minister knows, is cost inflation in construction, not all these reports and so on. They are not saving us any money. They are actually costing us money by delaying. When the rail review was started, what would the project for the western rail corridor have cost? Has there been 20% or 30% building inflation? I think that is a fair and relevant question.

Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for the question. My interest is also in the western rail corridor. The Minister mentioned freight being part of it and that the analysis around all of that may bring that economic argument across the line. I feel another problem we have with it is that when an analysis is done of passenger numbers, it is done in much too narrow a scope. For instance, when I lived not far from the Sligo-Dublin rail line, people got on and off the train from Dublin in Dromod in County Leitrim. Many of them are from as far away as west Cavan because it is the nearest railway to them. That is the same situation as in many of these cases, where the analysis is done in a tight, narrow framework along the rail line. It needs to be much broader than that. The experience has always been that when you link centres of economic activity, whether Galway to Limerick or Dublin to Sligo, you will see people use that facility. We have a centre of economic activity in Sligo which we intend to build and grow.

One of the obvious ways of doing that is to put the rail line up that far. It is a very short journey going past an international airport. Ireland West Airport is right on the edge of this rail line. There is no reason to suggest that this should not be done. I acknowledge Deputy Harkin's statement about the competition that exists from people who want to see a greenway there. We also need greenways but we must give priority to national infrastructure and put our rail lines back in place for everyone in Ireland.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I will try to give Deputies Martin Kenny and Ó Cuív the same clarity I gave to Deputy Harkin earlier. The rail review does not propose the reintroduction of the line to Collooney. I believe in those contexts it is better to keep the line as a greenway. This is a 30-year investment timeline.

To answer Deputy Ó Cuív's question about the inflation aspect, we must think about this over a 30-year period. The cost is roughly €1 billion a year over that period. In that regard, inflation has been acute in the past two to three years, but this is a longer term strategic issue.

To answer the Deputy Kenny's question about passenger numbers, I agree that the evidence is not what was expected. When we opened the line from Ennis to Galway, the passenger numbers far exceeded the levels predicted by those who doubt public transport, which is very attractive to Irish people. They want a good public transport service. I am concentrating on the rail freight issue because of the economics of the project and the fact that the economic development opportunity for the west in a decarbonised haulage system is far greater. What we need to do immediately is to order wagons so that we can start the rail freight revival in Waterford Port and Shannon Foynes Port, but also through Dublin Port and other locations. That then gives us a wider network that will allow the western rail corridor to start to come into play because it will be possible to export through Foynes, through this network, or through Rosslare or Dublin. It is a natural interconnected system. The benefit is that the new rail freight wagons travel at the same speed as passenger services, so we can run the two on the same line. They complement and do not interrupt each other.

I will come back to the point that this is contested. Not everyone agrees. As Deputy Ó Cuív says, it requires us to take a slightly big, bold, longer term vision. If we go to talk to all those businesses, which I am sure he does, along the western rail corridor, and ask if they want a low-carbon haulage solution - they have an obligation to be zero carbon in their operations - the answer will be "Yes". People think that the current system is economic because they are judging it on a historical fossil fuel transport system. We are switching to an electric system. We must do that in order to decarbonise our transport system. In those circumstances, the likes of Marshall Yard, Claremorris, Crossmolina or another location will actually give us a system that I believe can work. The European Investment Bank is going to assess that recommendation, which was included in the strategic rail review. The review will be concluded very quickly, within a matter of months, not years, and then we need to start making economic investment decision in our ports, on the railway freight wagons and on the reopening of that line because it is a network system. That missing piece kills the network benefits, in particular for Mayo and Galway, and those counties in the north west. That is why I think it is critical issue that we need to collectively consider in the coming months. We must come to a decision on it.