Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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27. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of metro north and the projected timeline for delivery of the project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13996/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The Programme for Government includes a commitment to proceed with the new Metro North project and as I have outlined in my reply to the previous question, funding is provided in the Capital Plan to facilitate construction of the link commencing in 2021 with a view to delivery by 2026/2027.

The decision to proceed with new Metro North followed consideration of the Fingal/North Dublin Transport Study and the National Transport Authority's (NTA) 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.

The NTA and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) have commenced preparatory work on the planning and design of new Metro North and a dedicated project Steering Group has been established which is meeting on a regular basis. The NTA, in collaboration with TII, is 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 expect that this process will be complete by the end of 2017, after which a public consultation process will be undertaken in 2018.