Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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65. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will consider upgrading the Rosslare to Connolly Station rail line in order to make journey times shorter and attract more passengers; if the future of the Rosslare to Gorey rail line will be guaranteed in view of current trends of increasing passenger numbers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38768/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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​I presume the Deputy's question is in the context of the Rail Review 2016.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) is currently running a public consultation on rail in Ireland.  It was launched over two weeks ago with the publication of the Rail Review 2016 - which the NTA undertook in conjunction with Iarnród Éireann - together with an NTA consultation document "The Role of Rail in Ireland and Funding its Delivery".  Both documents are available on the NTA's website.

The public consultation process will give the public and all interested parties the opportunity to give their views and contribute to the debate on the future of heavy rail in Ireland.  The public consultation process will run until 18th January 2017 and the NTA will then prepare a report based on the findings; thereafter I intend to bring this report to Government. 

No decisions will be made about the heavy rail network, or individual rail lines, before the public consultation process has concluded and been evaluated.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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66. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will address concerns that he has not provided funding to progress the metro north project in 2017; the progress of the project; when he expects the current planning phase will be completed; and the amount of the value of the €170 million invested to date on the original metro north project that will be recoverable. [38842/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for the implementation and development of public transport infrastructure projects in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA), including new Metro North.

The decision to proceed with new Metro North followed consideration of the Fingal/North Dublin Transport Study and the NTA's recommendations on the study, which identified the light-rail link as the optimum long term public transport solution on the Swords/airport/city centre corridor. It is proposed that the service will offer capacity for 9,900 passengers per hour per direction with the potential to expand services in the future if demand requires.

Funding for the project is provided under the Government's current Capital Plan, allowing initially for the planning and design phases of the project, followed by the construction phase which is expected to commence in 2021 with a view to delivering the project by 2026/2027.   In 2017, €3 million is being allocated to progress the planning and design work.  The NTA, in collaboration with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), are currently undertaking an option analysis and selection study of possible metro alignments and station locations.  Arising from this work a final route and station configuration will be established.  It is my understanding that the NTA and TII anticipate that this process will be complete by the end of 2017, after which a public consultation process will be undertaken in early 2018.

Of the previous expenditure incurred on the original Metro North Scheme I would anticipate a large proportion of this investment will be of value; however the exact proportion can only be determined when the current option analysis and selection work has been progressed significantly. My Department will continue to monitor progress, including funding for the project, as the planning and design process evolves.