Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 74: To ask the Minister for Transport the analysis his Department has carried out to examine the feasibility of continuing the tunnelling machines for the proposed Dublin metro from the proposed station at St. Stephen's Green onto a connecting point with the existing Sandyford Luas line; if the Government has a proposed timetable for such an initiative; if it will be possible to run metro carriages on the Luas line south of Ranelagh; and the upgrades which would be required for such metro services to be run to Sandyford and beyond to Cherrywood. [9201/06]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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When developing the metro proposals for Dublin, the Railway Procurement Agency investigated the feasibility of a physical connection between metro north and the Luas green line and concluded that such a connection is feasible.

While Transport 21 involves a very large commitment of financial resources, those resources are also finite. It was therefore necessary to prioritise the investments to be made over the ten year period. In that context it was decided to extend metro north to Swords and to join the two existing Luas lines and extend that line northwards to Liffey junction. Transport 21 also provides for interchange at St. Stephen's Green between metro, Luas and interconnector, in the same way as provision for interchange is made elsewhere across the proposed network.

The Dublin Transportation Office's A Platform for Change continues to provide the strategic planning framework for the development of the greater Dublin area's transport system. In that context further feasibility studies and planning work will be undertaken on projects in A Platform for Change but not included in Transport 21, including the upgrading of the Luas green line to metro. However, funding to bring such projects to construction is not included in Transport 21's ten-year capital envelope.

Provision was made during the construction of the Luas green line for its future upgrading to metro. It will be possible to run metro rolling stock on the Luas line south of Ranelagh, when the metro tunnel is connected to the Luas green line. However this will require some further upgrading of the existing infrastructure particularly to take account of the longer trains which operate on metro including, for example, lengthening of platforms and upgrading of control systems and power supply.