Written answers

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Transport Infrastructure

Photo of Tommy BroughanTommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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697. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the planned transport infrastructural spending by his Department for the period from 2014 to 2020 outside the greater Dublin area under the following headings: national heavy rail infrastructure; national light rail infrastructure; and national roads infrastructure. [16086/14]

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Government's policy in relation to capital infrastructure to 2016, including rail and road investments, is set out in the "Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012-16: Medium Term Exchequer Framework". The priority is to maintain safety standards and to protect and extract maximum value from existing infrastructure, rather than the development of new transport infrastructure. In relation to heavy rail, the focus is on maintaining the existing network and renewing key infrastructure assets. The bulk of the capital funding available for heavy rail each year, amounting to over €114million in 2014, is allocated for the Infrastructure Manager Multi-Annual Contract (IMMAC), required under EU regulation to fund the maintenance and renewal of the heavy rail network. The IMMAC replaces the Railway Safety Programme which had an annual spend of approximately €100m across the entire network.

There are no plans for light rail investments outside of the Greater Dublin Area in the “Medium Term Exchequer Framework”.

Due to the reduced funding and the priority for maintaining existing road transport infrastructure, no direct Exchequer funded road development projects are scheduled to go to construction for the next number of years.  A number of PPP projects, including the N7/N11, the N17/N18 Gort to Tuam, the N25 New Ross Bypass and the N11 Gorey-Enniscorthy projects are however being progressed.  With the exception of the Newlands Cross interchange and the Rathnew N11 upgrade, all of these PPPs are outside the Greater Dublin Area.

Consideration of a new government capital investment plan to 2020 has begun. This will involve a focused review of the medium-term capital envelope to take account of investment priorities for the next 5 years.

My priority, as under the current plan, will be to protect investment made to date and maintain safety standards. If additional funds are available there will be many competing transport projects across all modes and from all regions. Only projects for which there is a clear identifiable need, which are affordable, have a robust business case and add value to existing infrastructure, will be prioritised for funding to 2020.

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