Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 48: To ask the Minister for Transport if increased attention will be paid to enhancing the rail and road infrastructure in the Shannon and Kerry regions to ensure visitors can move around quickly and easily, for example by facilitating the western rail link, and giving consideration to extending it to Kerry. [20570/05]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The western rail corridor is a proposal that would link Collooney in County Sligo with Ennis in County Clare, thereby creating rail connections between Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford. Because the corridor would be linked to the rail network generally it would also be connected to the Kerry line.

The chairman of the working group set up in June 2004 to examine the western rail corridor proposal recently submitted his report to me. That report is now being examined within my Department in the context of the finalisation of the multi-annual investment framework for transport.

The planning, design and implementation of national roads improvement projects is a matter for the National Roads Authority, NRA, in conjunction with the relevant local authorities.

I am informed by the NRA that the 2005 national roads allocations for the Shannon-Kerry region reflects an increase of 38.4% over the 2004 allocations with an allocation of €139.7 million in 2005 compared to €101 million in 2004.

Significant improvements to the national road network in the area include the completion of the N7 — Limerick southern ring road, phase one, the N18-N19 — Newmarket on Fergus and Hurlers Cross, and the N21 — Castleisland to Tralee. In addition, I am informed that work is continuing on projects such as the N18 — Ennis bypass, the N85 — western relief road, the N21 — Castleisland-Abbeyfeale and the N22 — Gortatlea to Farranfore among others. National road projects in planning also include the N85 — Ennis-Inagh, the N7 — Limerick southern ring road, phase two, the N21 — Castleisland and Adare bypasses and the N22 — Tralee bypass and Tralee to Bealagrellagh.

I am informed by Iarnród Éireann that since 1994 over €50 million has been invested in the Mallow-Tralee railway line as part of the national development plan. This involved the total relaying of the line and the replacement of old track with new continuous welded rail, CWR, and the upgrading of customer facilities on the route.

The Kerry route re-signalling project was completed in February 2005. The project involves the replacing of the old semaphore mechanical signalling system by a computer controlled colour light signalling system on the Tralee-Mallow section of the line. The re-signalling project is designed to deliver significant service improvements to rail customers who use the Tralee-Dublin route.

Planned investment in 120 regional railcars will enable an increase in frequency of services on the Kerry line to two hourly with up to eight trains per day in each direction. These railcars are expected to come into service in late 2007.

By the end of 2005, 67 new purpose built InterCity carriages will be delivered for use on the Dublin-Cork line. When the full fleet is in service in 2006, Iarnród Éireann will begin to deliver an hourly service in each direction on the Cork-Dublin route. The carriages, currently operating on the Cork-Dublin route, will be allocated to other routes, including the services to Kerry.

Service frequency improvements introduced on the Limerick to Ennis line in December 2003 have been hugely successful and have seen a 50-fold increase in weekly passenger numbers on this line.