Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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152. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will reconsider resurrecting the Bantry line of the west Cork railway; if he will make funding available to run cost-benefit analysis of a west Cork railway; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11731/24]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The All-Island Strategic Rail Review, which is being undertaken in co-operation with the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland, will inform the development of the railway sector on the Island of Ireland over the coming decades, to 2050, in line with net zero targets in both jurisdictions.

The Review is considering the future of the rail network with regard to the following ambitions: improving sustainable connectivity between the major cities including the potential for higher/high-speed, enhancing regional accessibility, supporting balanced regional development and rail connectivity to our international gateways. This also includes the role of rail freight.

Work on the Review is now at an advanced stage and a draft report was published for a Strategic Environmental Assessment public consultation in July of last year.

During the initial long list sift of options for interventions carried out as part of the Review options were ruled out due to strategic constraints. This included ruling out towns or corridors with low demand potential. Interventions that aimed to connect towns with populations of 10,000 or more that passed through sparsely populated areas were considered, whereas interventions that did not extend to towns of a similar population and only served sparsely populated areas, such as West Cork, were deemed to be financially unviable for rail. In these cases, buses would typically represent a more viable form of public transport.

The public consultation phase of the SEA process concluded on 29th September and submissions have been reviewed by officials from both jurisdictions. It is expected that a final report will be submitted for Ministerial approval and ultimately the approval of the Government, as well as to the Minister for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland, in the coming months and that the final Review will be published in the Summer.