Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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158. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the progress of the Programme for Government commitments to prioritise plans for the delivery of MetroLink, Luas and other light rail expansion, DART expansion and interconnector and BusConnects; if the projects will be considered as a priority in the National Development Plan 2017-2028; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47355/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Since the publication of the Programme for Government - Our Shared Future last year much progress has been made on the investment programme for public transport. The Preliminary Business Cases for the MetroLink, BusConnects and DART+ were submitted to my Department for review earlier this year and I expect to bring all three to Government for approval in line with the requirements set out in the Public Spending Code.

Next year applications for railway orders for MetroLink and the DART+ West project will be submitted to An Bord Pleanála, as will the planning applications for the BusConnects Core Bus Corridors.

The roll out of the BusConnects Network Redesign began this year with the first phase - the H-Spine - launched in June and the second – the C-Spine – scheduled for Q4.

This year also saw the completion of the Luas Green Line Capacity Enhancement project which, through the addition of new trams and the lengthening of existing ones, added approximately 30% capacity to the Green Line.

In April this year I issued approval under the Public Spending Code’s Decision Gate 0 (Strategic Assessment) to Luas Finglas and that means the project is continuing its development progress with a further public consultation to be held on the Preferred Route, probably in Q4 this year.

Work is also underway on the Cork Light Rail Transit project, while the forthcoming public consultation process on the draft Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area will have a range of supporting analyses into heavy rail and light rail proposals in the GDA.

I am sure the Deputy will agree that significant progress has been made and with the publication of the revised National Development Plan next week I am confident that this progress will continue apace over the next few years.