Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 136: To ask the Minister for Transport the anticipated date for the further augmentation of commuter rail facilities to and from Dublin in the context of the national development plan or in the interim; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39885/09]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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As set out in Transport 21 and the National Development Plan, the next augmentation of commuter rail services will be the Kildare Route Project which entails the quadrupling of a critical section of track between Cherry Orchard and Hazelhatch on the Heuston to Kildare line. New or relocated stations have already been opened at Adamstown in 2007, Fonthill and Park West in 2008 and an expanded station in Hazelhatch in May 2009. The Kildare Route Project will allow the separation of Intercity and commuter services and will improve speed, reliability and capacity for commuter, regional and intercity services. This is due for completion in January 2010.

Work is continuing on Phase 1 of the Navan Rail link. This phase involves the reopening of 7.5km of railway line running off the Maynooth line, at Clonsilla, to the M3 interchange at Pace, near Dunboyne. Services are expected to commence towards the end of 2010. Detailed design work on the next phase of the Navan line from Pace to Navan is also currently underway.

Further works in progress include the Dublin City Centre Resignalling Project. This project, will provide for further capacity enhancement by upgrading signalling to accommodate more services in the critical City Centre area. It is a key project aimed at unlocking the existing major bottleneck in the city centre, which will have positive spin off effects for DART, Commuter and Intercity passengers. The project is due to be completed in early 2012.

Work is also continuing on the DART Underground and the associated electrification programmes.

Also the new Inter City Railcars and Inter City carriages have brought improvements in terms of capacity, reliability and services. The configuration of the new Inter City Railcars will also allow for greater flexibility in timetabling as they can be set-up as either 3 car trains or 6 car trains.

The Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) is currently working on a successor to the Platform for Change and this is expected in the first half of next year.

As I have previously advised the House, the start and completion dates of Transport 21 projects in planning, such as the DART Underground, will in each case be determined by the outcome of public consultation, the statutory planning approval process, the public procurement process and the availability of financial resources determined by the funding allocation available during the current economic climate.