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Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 March 2022

Thursday, 3 March 2022

Questions (6)

Peadar Tóibín

Question:

6. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Transport the status of the Navan rail line assessment; and when the project will commence construction. [12105/22]

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Oral answers (7 contributions)

There is a confluence of crises happening at present. As the Minister knows there is a commuter hell experience for people living in County Meath in terms of trying to get to work in Dublin. There is a cost of living crisis with the increase in fuels. There is a global warming crisis happening at present. A rail line from Navan to Dublin would fix all of these issues. It has been spoken about for years. I am seeking from the Minister a commitment it will happen and a timeline.

A Navan rail link was included in the draft greater Dublin area transport strategy of the National Transport Authority, NTA, as one of the proposed projects to be delivered by 2042. I am aware that this issue is one that generated a significant number of submissions during the public consultation held by the NTA in November 2020.

On the proposal itself, the assessment report undertaken by the NTA was published as a background paper to the draft transport strategy at the end of 2021. It considered again the strategic rationale for such a rail link, assessed rail and bus options, re-examined the potential alignments of a rail link and provided a high-level assessment of cost and demand.

The wider appraisal, which examined the qualitative and quantitative benefits of the Navan rail line, has shown that the scheme has the potential to deliver significant economic, environmental and social benefits along the Dublin-Navan corridor. On the basis of the assessment, the report concluded there was a strong strategic rationale for the proposal and this is why it has been brought forward for inclusion in the draft strategy.

The NTA's transport strategy is subject to a formal statutory approval process and a final version will ultimately be submitted for my approval later this year. If included in the final strategy, this project will require significant planning and design before construction can commence. As it stands, the draft strategy proposes delivery of the Navan rail line in the latter half of the strategy period.

Meath is a special case. I know everybody comes in here thinking their own county is a special case. This morning, the majority of workers in County Meath left County Meath to go to work. This happens in no other local authority area in the 32 counties of this great country. People from Meath commute further to work than people in any other county. I know the damage it is doing to people. I know of people spending three hours commuting a day. They do not get to see their families during the week. They get to see their families at the weekend alone. It is having an enormous economic impact. Travelling these journeys on a daily basis costs families thousands of euro, never mind the cost to the environment. The problem is that we have had dozens of feasibility studies. We have had analysis and reviews coming out of our ears for decades in County Meath. It is in a draft plan at present. What is missing is the political will. I have confidence that if it is going to happen it will happen under the Minister's stewardship. I ask the Minister to give it the political will. I ask the Minister to say today that it will happen.

There is no shortage of political will for this project. I am on the record in the House and elsewhere saying I believe it does make strategic sense because what the Deputy says is true. We have developed a completely unsustainable planning, housing, development and transport model particularly in the eastern region but also throughout the country. We have had doughnut development where we go out and out and out. It still continues. According to the latest statistics 74% of all new houses in the country are being built in the greater Dublin area, including counties Meath, Kildare, Louth and Wicklow. Half of the building in the area is in these surrounding counties. There is a real problem that if we do not start switching our commuting patterns away from road-based systems towards rail and public transport systems the maths just simply will not work. Many of the commuters coming into Dublin city will hit an M50 that is at capacity where no additional capacity can be provided. It is inevitable gridlock. The Deputy spoke about the human cost of long commuting times and being stuck in traffic as well as the environmental and economic inefficiencies of it. I am very supportive. This is why through the process with the NTA any time I have been asked I have said that it seems to make strategic sense. The NTA has come back to confirm this. We must now do the cost estimations. As I said to Deputy O'Rourke earlier, this is what we are doing. We are on track. It will take time. There is a queue and planning in this country takes inordinate time. There is no lack of commitment to the project.

Spatial development in this country is an absolute disaster. Ireland is a lopsided economy at present. Dublin is overheating. The Dublin commuter belt goes into Ulster, Connacht and Munster. Much of regional Ireland is being emptied of its young people. We have a situation where the average age in Baldoyle is 33 and the average age in Killarney is 45. Young people are being forced into this commuter belt. These young people are the collateral damage of this. Their lives and existence at present are a catastrophe. I know people from out as far as Castlepollard and Clonmel who stay in Dublin during the week because getting in and out of it is so difficult. People bought houses in County Meath 20 years ago on the promise there would be a rail line in 2010. We were promised it in 2015. My worry is that unless a solid gold commitment is made by the Minister to deliver this it will remain in feasibility studies forever.

The Minister has just said that planning takes an inordinate amount of time. We are on notice there will be opposition to this plan when it comes. That is the nature of privilege. We hear it through the national airwaves. The Minister said the planning process takes an inordinate amount of time and there is a balance of rights to be struck between development and environmental impact. How does the Minister see this progressing? There is an ongoing review. How will it be addressed to deliver these projects as quickly as possible?

The answer is the Attorney General along with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, have committed huge resources to doing a top-to-bottom review of the planning and development legislation. Originally the Planning Act 2000 was a very good Act but it has been amended so many times and is so complex, multilayered and multifaceted that it is very hard for anyone to implement.

The review, updating and recalibrating of that legislation is one of the most important projects the Government has under way. It will be completed by the end of the year and will help not just this project, but a whole range of projects, to get through the planning process more quickly. I keep coming back to the point that we should be straight and honest that, to get the country more balanced in this way, we will also have to invest in rail in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick. We will have to invest in rural public transport and build a metro in Dublin, about which I am going to be asked questions. That is one reality. Planning is one issue but the allocation of capital expenditure will mean that not every project will be built tomorrow. However, as to the question of whether we should or will build the Navan rail line, we certainly will.

Questions Nos. 8 to 10, inclusive, replied to with Written Answers.
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