Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 99: To ask the Minister for Transport his views on the proposal to build a metro from Dublin's city centre to the airport; the reason the proposed legislation for a metro has been removed from the Government's legislative programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28834/05]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The metro proposal is being considered by my Department as part of its preparatory work on a ten year transport investment framework. I hope to bring proposals on the framework to Government shortly.

The existing statutory process for approving a metro project is set out in Part 3 of the Transport (Railway Infrastructure) Act 2001. The legislation originally proposed to further streamline and improve the statutory approval process relating to the metro but it has now been subsumed into the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Bill 2005 which is currently being drafted by the Department for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. This Bill will provide a streamlined framework for dealing with national strategic infrastructure projects.