Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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639. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of the provision of the metro north from Dublin city centre to Swords-Lissenhall, County Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5624/17]

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

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 expected 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 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.  The NTA, in collaboration with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), are 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 2018.