Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to put in place measures to increase the capacity of the Luas to deal with high volumes of passengers at the Heuston stop such as building a link between the Red Line and Green line filtering passengers off the Red Line before Heuston via Fatima stop. [57243/12]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport.  Following the establishment of the National Transport Authority (NTA) in December 2009, the implementation and development of infrastructure projects in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA), such as LUAS, comes under the remit of the NTA.   

Given the limited availability of Exchequer funding, Luas Broombridge is the only major public transport project to receive funding under the Government’s 5-year capital investment programme for transport to 2016.  This project was prioritised as it was affordable, has a strong business case and links the two existing Luas lines thereby providing a Luas network. The limited funding available to 2016 does not allow for further extensions to Luas in that period.  

However capital projects such as further Luas extensions will be examined again in 2015 in advance of the next capital programme and projects which are affordable, have strong business cases and contribute to sustainable economic recovery will be shortlisted for consideration.