James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise a very important issue which affects the entire north of Dublin city and county, namely, metro north. On Thursday Fingal County Council will present details of four master plans for Swords, involving 67 ha of land, 218,000 sq. m of commercial space, and 55 acres of office space in buildings four, five, six and seven storeys high. Some 18,000 jobs will eventually be created in this area. The plans include 2,700 badly needed homes. There will be 10,000 new residents. Another 3,500 homes are to be constructed as a result of the funding the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government has made available under the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF. That represents another 12,000 residents, so there are to be 22,000 extra residents for Swords. Swords has a population of 40,000 at the moment. The Fingal development plan for 2017 to 2023 projects that the population will grow to 100,000.

I would like the Leader to bring in the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport because we need the first phase of MetroLink to start as soon as possible. I know there are issues and disputes about the route on the south side but there are no such disputes on the north side. This has been in planning for more than 20 years. It is very clear that MetroLink will take pressure off the city of Dublin by allowing access to the city from these lands by rapid transport. It will connect the airport, DCU and Swords with the city. As previous speakers have said, Fingal has the youngest population in Ireland and, possibly, in Europe. These are talented, well educated people who are looking for jobs and who want to stay in Fingal. The north end of the MetroLink line has to go ahead while the south side sorts itself out.

This initiative is close to my heart. I fought for it during my time in Cabinet when there was no money and people wanted to kill it. I wanted it to be kept alive. We have the money now and we have a plan and preferred route for the north side. Can we please proceed with this? The Minister needs to come in here urgently to explain to us why it cannot go ahead on the north side now while the arrangements for the south side of the city are finalised.