Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 26 Feb 1991

Vol. 405 No. 6

Written Answers. - DART Costs.

Ivan Yates

Ceist:

212 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the cost, in capital terms, of the DART service since its inception; the cost of servicing the interest on the capital cost; the annualised expenditure and revenue figures; the way in which these match with projections when it was originally established; if he will outline the annualised passenger journey figures using the DART to date; and the projections for each of the next five years.

Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications (Mr. S. Brennan)

The DART was commissioned on 1 July 1984 at a total capital cost of £113 million. Interest incurred on the capital cost of the DART service since its inception is as follows: 1984, £8 million; 1985, £15.5 million; 1986, £16.3 million; 1987, £16.8 million; 1988, £11.7 million; 1989, £11.3 million; 1990, £11.2 million.

Annual expenditure and revenue on DART since 1984 is as follows:

	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m	£m
Expenditure	5.8	5.1	5.9	6.6	6.9	7.3
Revenue	2.8	5.3	6.3	7.4	8.2	8.6

Material in respect of 1990 is not yet available.

Since 1985 annual revenue on the DART system has exceeded operating costs excluding depreciation, financial charges and infrastructural costs. These results represent an improvement on the projections originally expected by CIE.

Details of passenger journeys from 1984-90 are as follows:

Year	Passenger Journeys 000's Millions
1984	7.5
1985	11.7
1986	13.0
1987	15.3
1988	14.7
1989	15.0
1990	15.2
	(Estimated)

CIE estimate that passenger journeys on the DART will increase by 2 per cent annually over the next five years.