Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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727. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to improve transport links for the town of Killucan including the proposed reopening of Killucan train station as included in the Rathwire-Killucan Development Plan 2004-2010 and backed up by research by AIT for Westmeath County Council in 2007 which found there was sufficient demand to make the reopening viable. [16565/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport I have responsibility for policy and the overall funding of public transport. Matters relating to the re-opening of railway stations, such as at Killucan, are a matter for Iarnród Éireann in the first instance. Likewise, issues relating to public transport links and services to particular towns are a matter for individual transport operators, in conjunction with the National Transport Authority, as appropriate. Iarnród Éireann has not made any proposal to my Department to re-open Killucan station.  As the Deputy will be aware, CIE is in a difficult financial position and is dependent on continued bank funding.  It has no resources of its own available to fund new projects and there is no funding in the current capital plan for Killucan station.  The lifetime of the Government's current capital investment plan runs to 2016 and with the available funding  the priority is to protect the operational network and maintain safety standards, rather than the opening of new stations.

Consideration of a new capital investment plan to 2020 will begin shortly. Prioritisation of individual rail projects for funding will depend on the overall funding made available to transport for all modes, and within that, the funds made available for heavy rail. The priority for heavy rail post 2016 will be, as at present, the protection of the operational network and the maintenance of safety standards. If there are additional funds after that, and this is not certain, there will be competing demands between the opening of new lines, the improvement of existing lines, rolling stock upgrades, the upgrade of in use train stations, as well as the opening of new train stations in different parts of the country. All of these competing demands will be subject to robust analysis and will require strong business cases justifying their value and demonstrating how they will significantly increase patronage on the rail network.

When opening a new station on an existing line, consideration must be given to both the benefits of gaining new passengers and also the downsides of the cost of constructing and running the new station, and also the risk of losing other passengers due to increased journey times.