My colleagues, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Finn, are from Iarnród Éireann. Mr. Murray is from Dublin Bus and is here this afternoon to assist with questions relating to bus support for the business.
I will give a brief overview of progress on the substantial upgrade programme currently being carried out on the railway. In the past five years, €1.25 billion has been invested as part of the national development plan and the programme is ongoing. The focus to date has been on infrastructure. Some 450 miles of track have been relaid, 300 bridges rebuilt and 570 level crossings upgraded, and a major amount of related work has been carried out on fencing and coastal defence. These are substantial infrastructure improvements across the network of Iarnród Éireann.
Now that the physical infrastructure has been substantially upgraded, the next step is major investment in the rolling stock fleet. This is the part of the investment of which our customers, namely, our passengers, see the direct benefits. Some new rolling stock has already been provided on our commuter and DART routes. This summer the first deliveries of 67 new InterCity carriages for the Dublin to Cork line will arrive. Recently an order was made for 120 new InterCity rail cars for all other routes. These are to arrive in 2007.
To complement these developments, we have also been making direct investments in the area of customer service to make the network more accessible to everybody — including those with mobility or sensory impairment — by installing lifts, help points, etc. Our ticketing has been made more accessible by the provision of on-line booking facilities and automatic ticket machines at our stations. A total of 100 such machines are already in place and there are a further 50 to come. The investment, then, is not only in infrastructure but also in rolling stock and customer service.
The DART upgrade project is nearing completion. DART capacity, when the project is complete, will be double that which obtained on the service's launch in 1984. Further substantial projects are being developed to increase the capacity of rail travel in and around the city of Dublin. I refer here to: further resignalling in the central area to allow more trains to enter the central stations; extra terminal capacity and potential additional terminals; "four tracking" of a section of the line between Heuston Station and Kildare to give more capacity for commuting from the western suburbs; and a possible spur to Dunboyne and on to the M3 interchange. These projects would come together in an integrated rail plan for Dublin. The latter would include at its heart an interconnector tunnel between Spencer Dock and the Connolly Station side of our operations to Heuston Station and the western side. I anticipate that the ten-year investment plan, which will be published shortly, will cover the key elements.
I am aware that one of the main topics for discussion this afternoon will be the DART upgrade project. The objective of the investment of €176 million in the DART, the largest in Dublin's rail services since the service was opened in 1984, is to increase its capacity by 33%. As already stated, this will lead to a doubling of the DARTs capacity.
The use of eight-carriage trains is a key element of the upgrade. At present, the maximum is six carriages. Therefore, there will be an increase in capacity of one third. Making the DART more accessible for mobility impaired customers is another key element. Those who use the DART regularly will know that many of our stations are not totally accessible at present. This project aims to remedy that.
The first phase of work started on the south side of the route in October 2003 and continued until July 2004. During that phase, the DART was closed on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays to enable the lengthening of the south side stations, as well as the renewal of overhead wires to provide the increased power necessary for longer trains. The same was done on the north side from August 2004 through to last weekend to the end of May 2005, when the DART was again closed on Saturdays, Sundays and some public holidays to allow work to be carried out on the lines to Howth and Malahide. That work has now been completed and no further disruption on the north side is envisaged.
This weekend the second phase of the project — to ensure accessibility to stations — begins on the south side. It is necessary to carry out further work on the south side because of planning and property issues encountered during the first phase. An Taisce has appealed planning permission in respect of the accessibility upgrades at, for example, Killiney and Blackrock. It has also indicated its intention to appeal planning permissions for works at Salthill and Monkstown. There are other issues associated with Seapoint station. We are endeavouring to overcome these issues and believe that, subject to doing so, we will be able to complete the work at Killiney and Blackrock in the 14 weekends scheduled this summer.
The completion of the scheme involves other work that does not impact on the railway. I refer, for example, to the construction of much needed new station buildings at Howth Junction and Bayside and of new sidings at Fairview to cater for our increased fleet of trains. When these projects are completed, major benefits will flow directly to DART customers on a daily basis and everybody living along the route will be able to access the DART, which will have a much greater capacity.
There are special arrangements for the weekends this summer, a key component of which is the provision of additional bus services. That is why Mr. Murray is present. Bus capacity is to be increased by 100% on routes 7, 7A, 45, 45A, 59, 84, 145 and 184. I specifically draw the committee's attention to route 145, which is the new route along the QBC to Bray and on which buses will be provided with a 15-minute frequency. In the previous period during which work was carried out on the south side, a substantial number of people used these services. We know, therefore, that they provide an alternative while such work is being carried out.
Special bus services will also operate for special events, such as the soccer match at Lansdowne Road on Saturday, 4 June. We are suspending work for the air show at Bray on 20 and 21 August in order that DART trains can run.
An extensive communications programme has been put in place and posters, advertisements and announcements on AA Roadwatch have highlighted the closures. Media advertising is also being used and 200,000 leaflets have been printed and distributed. For a number of weeks, large and substantial advertisements have appeared on DART trains to indicate that further works will be carried out on the south side this summer.
I wish to comment now on to the third item with which I was asked to deal, namely, the western rail corridor. This is currently a disused section of railway running from Collooney, which is on the Dublin-Sligo line, to Ennis via Claremorris, Tuam and Athenry. The strategic rail review, published in 2003, examined the case for reopening the line and concluded that there was no economic reason for doing so. The previous Minister for Transport subsequently commissioned a working group to independently examine the case for the reopening of the western rail corridor. Iarnród Éireann has been part of this group and has provided key information for it and engaged consultants to prepare cost estimates and demand forecasts. The chairman of the working group recently published his report and passed it to the Minister for Transport. The report is being examined by the Department and we await the outcome of these deliberations.
