Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 April 2014
677. Deputy Finian McGrath asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will consider including Claremorris, County Mayo, in the TEN-T network; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17274/14]
View answerClaremorris is included on the TEN-T Comprehensive Network as the Dublin Mayo rail line and the N17 Tuam to Claremorris road are both included in the Comprehensive network. The new Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Regulations, covering the period 2014-2020 were proposed by the European Commission and ultimately agreed and signed into law in 2013 following discussions with the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. These are focused on addressing bottlenecks and missing links in cross-border European transport infrastructure.
Previous regulations were considered ineffective as the network was too large and spread out over too many European cities, airports and ports. In order to address this issue the EU Commission proposed the concept of a Core Network linking the main nodes of the European transport system. The Core Network is a subset of a Comprehensive Network which feeds into these nodes. The Core Network has to be seen in the context of a strategic European network that creates European added value and represents the most important nodes and links across the EU. The Core Network links Core Nodes in a multimodal manner.
The criteria for the inclusion of a Core Node are
Metropolitan European Growth Area (MEGA) cities according to European Spatial Planning Observatory Network Atlas 2006 (ESPON) with more than 0.5 million inhabitants
conurbations or city clusters which exceed 1 million inhabitants
cities or conurbations located at branching or crossing points on the TEN-T Core Network
ports with an annual transhipment volume of at least 1% of the total transhipment volume of freight by all EU seaports
The main city of NUTS 1 Island regions
This methodology has been applied on a European wide basis which means that on the island of Ireland the Core Network consists of
Airports = Dublin & Cork
Ports = Dublin, Cork & Shannon-Foynes and Belfast
Road & Rail = Cork-Dublin-Belfast (with a link to Shannon-Foynes Port)
Claremorris does not meet the above criteria to be considered as a Core Node. Moreover the cities of Limerick, Waterford, Galway and Derry did not meet the criteria to be Core Nodes.
