Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 15 February 2018
5. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the future of the proposed underground rail interconnector linking Heuston Station and Spencer Dock; if this interconnector will be included in the new national capital plan; and, if not, the way in which he plans to increase the capacity of the rail network. [7883/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn 1972 the report on the transportation in Dublin study carried out by An Foras Forbartha stated we should build an underground rail connection between Heuston Station and Pearse Street and Connolly Station. In 1975 the report on the Dublin rapid rail transportation study stated the same and that it should be the second phase after the introduction of the Howth to Bray DART line. In 2001 the plan A Platform for Change stated the project was more important than anything else and should take precedence over the widening of the M50. That did not happen. A railway order was issued in December 2011 but subsequently cancelled. The report on the NTA greater Dublin draft transport study for the period 2016 to 2035 brought the measure back in and stated we had to have it.
Does the Minister intend to build it? Will it happen? Are we for real on this issue? Will it be in the plan that will be announced tomorrow?
As the Deputy is aware, the National Transport Authority's, NTA, transport strategy for the greater Dublin area 2016-2035 proposes implementation of the overall DART expansion programme. In the Government’s budgetary framework for capital investment, Building on Recovery: Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2016-2021, funding was allocated to progress a number of key public transport projects in the NTA's strategy, including the DART expansion programme.
The DART expansion programme has a key role to play in delivering an efficient transport system. When fully implemented, the enhancements to the heavy rail system provided for in the NTA's transport strategy will create a full metropolitan area DART network for Dublin with all of the lines linked and connected. This integrated rail network will provide the core high capacity transit system for the region and will deliver a very substantial increase in peak-hour capacity on all lines from Drogheda, Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Greystones.
The original cost of the overall DART expansion programme, including the DART underground tunnel element, was estimated, as the Deputy will be well aware from his own experience, at €4 billion, of which €3 billion was in respect of the tunnel as originally designed. The Government decided in September 2015 that the original proposal for the tunnel should be redesigned to provide a lower cost solution. I understand that the NTA is working with Irish Rail on a revised proposal that is expected to be completed soon.
In the meantime, significant investment to upgrade signalling and turn-back facilities in the critical city centre area allowed the upgrade and reopening of the Phoenix Park tunnel in 2016. At the time of its opening, the NTA stated that the opening of the tunnel was an opportunity in the short term, at modest cost, to bring commuters from the west and south west to the city centre and the business district in the south of the city. It stated also that the opportunity of developing the DART underground is to be protected for the future.
The upgrade to the Phoenix Park tunnel in 2016 at a cost of €13.5 million has seen commuters on the Kildare to Dublin Heuston line benefit from having the option of direct trains to Connolly, Tara Street, Pearse and Grand Canal Dock stations.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
Following the mid-term review of capital priorities, budget 2018 increased the multi-annual capital investment funding envelopes for the coming four-year period, including providing an enhanced capital envelope of €2.7 billion for Ireland's public transport investment between 2018 and 2021. This enhanced capital envelope includes funding in the order of €230 million for mainline rail and DART capacity enhancement and will allow acceleration of the initial stages of the overall DART expansion programme, focusing particularly at this stage on providing additional fleet to enhance capacity and extending the electrified DART system. Specifically, it will allow substantial progress on electrification of the Northern rail line as far as Balbriggan, now expected to be delivered in 2022, and commencing work on the Maynooth line.
Planning for longer term investment will form part of the national development plan, the Government's overall ten-year investment plan which we will be launching later this week alongside the new national planning framework for the period to 2040.
That is the same no nothing answer the Minister gave me a year ago. I am clear on what the Minister is saying; it is not going to happen. I have no faith in the Minister's ability to protect public transport or deliver public transport in this city. Our city is grinding to a halt and he is sitting back and watching it happen. It was galling to read in the newspapers today the front-page news that the metro will open up lands in the north of Dublin. We knew that 20 years ago. We were planning that 20 years ago in A Platform for Change, which was a proper plan about how we would make this city function and work. Critical to it, as well as the metro, was the DART interconnector because the two go together. There would be joint stations that complimented each other and we would start to have a public transport system that works. The Minister has given up on that. There is nothing happening. He has been saying for a year and a half that he is doing plans and looking at it. If he had been doing it, he would have answered this question today and he would be announcing tomorrow the building of the DART interconnector, but we will get nothing.
Thank you, Deputy.
The city is in gridlock and it will kill this country's growth prospects because it will not work. All the roads the Minister is building will not work. We need public transport.
You will have a further minute, Deputy.
Edgar Morgenroth is right. The Minister is killing our cities, particularly Dublin, and I am sad that is happening at a time when we have the money and the opportunity.
Deputy, you know that you have a further minute, so do not abuse the time.
Deputy Ryan was a little bit histrionic.
I am sorry. I am slightly emotional. I am 20 years waiting on this.
Please allow the Minister give his reply.
Deputy Ryan's party bankrupted the country in that 20 years.
During that 20 years-----
The Minister without interruption, please.
He has a short memory.
A very short memory.
-----I believe the Deputy was in government.
Yes.
I did not interrupt the Deputy. He was in government for that period of time. I do not know when this particular project was cancelled but I think the DART underground was deferred by the previous Government in November 2010.
No. It was 2011.
When you were not so busy deferring bankrupting the country, bankrupting the banks and propping up Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern, which you did with alacrity, I do not know what you were doing about transport but we inherited a situation in transport from you guys which was an absolute and utter disaster. You get up here day in, day out wanting to spend money like water, as you did the time you were in government. I will not sit here and take that as though money comes out of the sky when you are in opposition but when in government you just spend it and bankrupt the country.
Address the Chair, Minister.
That is the outrageous type of narrative Deputy Ryan comes out with day after day. We should be spending €4 billion on an underground-----
Thank you, Minister.
We are doing an extremely progressive job. We will not bankrupt the country for infrastructure.
The Minister will spend €4 billion on roads in the next four years. He is bankrupting the country now because the traffic system in this city is grinding to a halt. He is the Minister for transport today. He should stand up to that responsibility in a country where we do have budgets. I heard European Investment Bank, EIB, representatives tell the Committee on Budgetary Oversight that there is no counter-party for us to lend to. They have no public projects ready to go. We protected this project when we were in government. We had the metro in the four-year plan. Fine Gael then killed it, which was the worst decision by any Government because it was the perfect counter cyclical plan that would have provided us not just with a transport system that works but it would have opened up those transport lines for housing. Instead, this Government is saying, "Aren't we great". It is 30 years late in opening up those lands for housing. What are the people in Kildare and beyond going to do when that rail system is not good enough to carry the numbers we need to be carried into this city? The Minister is a failure as Minister for transport.
Thank you, Deputy.
He should stand up to that failure today. His key failing is that he does not believe in public transport. He does not believe in walking, cycling or any such mode of transport. All he wants to do is spend on roads. He has given no money to the cities-----
We are clearing up your mess.
-----and it is killing our country. That is why I am annoyed.
We are clearing up your legacy.
Deputy, please.
We are clearing up the mess you left behind.
We are clearing up the mess you left after you, which took ten years.
Gentlemen, this is Deputy Ryan's question.
It is very hard to listen to this rubbish.
Minister, will you address the Chair, please? The Minister has one minute to reply.
You cannot let him away with that.
Deputy Deering-----
Cannot get away with what? It is just the truth.
The truth is-----
It is the bloody truth.
-----that you presided over the bankruptcy of the country.
Deputy Ryan-----
How long did it take you-----
I ask Deputy Ryan and the other Members please to desist. The Minister has one minute to reply. I ask Members to let the Minister reply.
It is very difficult-----
Please, Deputy Deering. Your question will be dealt with shortly. I will not allow you your time if you continue to interrupt.
Sorry.
If you want your question taken, let the Minister respond.
I am speechless-----
Correct. That is a first.
-----having to listen to this extraordinary narrative which you come in here day after day-----
Minister, will you address the Chair, please?
Yes. I wish to know the pills this man is taking.
How long did it take the Minister to drive in here today?
This man must be smoking amnesia-----
How long did it take him to drive in here today?
There is a thing called an amnesia pill, and it makes one forget everything.
Minister, will you address the Chair?
How long did it take you to drive in today?
For his years in the wilderness, he took his amnesia pills. He has forgotten he was in government when the country was bankrupt.
Where we-----
He has forgotten about the four-year plan to which he referred. His plan went up in smoke because he spent money like there was no tomorrow. We are at least producing a plan, which is a ten-year plan that is responsible-----
Roads, roads, roads.
-----gradual and realistic. I will not listen any longer to the sort of hypocrisy I have to put up with from Deputy Ryan. He comes in here day after day and forgets that he was in government when the country went bankrupt.
You forgot the people of Dublin.
You were the great prop of Cowen and Ahern when they had magic coming out of the sky, with castles in the air that never existed and were never built.
You are crippling this city-----
I have heard of a goldfish memory. I have never heard of a green fish memory.
Members, it would be good if we calmed down for the next set of questions. Do not irritate yourselves too much. Question No. 7 is grouped with Questions Nos. 18, 22-----
I have Question No. 6.
My apologies, Deputy Brophy. My train of thought has been interfered with. Is it any wonder?
