Crusheen rail station funding
Deputy McNamara pressed for a quick decision on funding a proposed Crusheen station, citing its strategic value and young population. The Minister said there were many competing rail projects, budgets were limited, and nearer-term priorities such as Moyross, Ballysimon and Shannon-Foynes would come first.
Last week, Jim Meade, the CEO of Iarnród Éireann, told the transport committee that Crusheen:
is not currently in the funded plan we have from the Department. It is part of the all-island review. If the decision is taken to add a station there, it could be one of the quick wins of the review. Before the financial crash, a station design was drawn up for it ... It can be done, but it is a Government decision as to whether it will be funded.
Given the Minister's Department's ambitious transport emissions targets and given the fact Crusheen has the youngest demographic of any settlement in Clare, so patterns of a lifetime could be influenced, will the Department fund a railway station at Crusheen, which is just north of Ennis and is on the Limerick-Galway line?
Comment on this
I have to be upfront and honest with the Deputy. There are so many different stations I would love to introduce but we do have a limited budget. I have a budget of €35 billion and I have €100 billion worth of projects ready to go. The first additional station in that region will be in Moyross in the next two years. I believe a station in Ballysimon could have major strategic benefit and be of development potential for the city of Limerick, similarly the opening of the Shannon-Foynes line. I am absolutely supportive of the development of the western rail corridor, which I believe will be of fundamental help to that whole western arc, and that is not funded within the existing national development plan, NDP. In truth, in terms of what we can build in the next five-year period, those projects I just mentioned will get priority. I would be very much in favour of a station in Crusheen but it has to sit within a planned programme. This is not to mention Cork metropolitan rail, cross-city and Galway; I could go on.
Comment on this
That will take years. This is a quick win.
Comment on this
That is true but the reopening of Moyross and Ballysimon stations and of the Shannon-Foynes line, as well as the western rail corridor, are not funded in the existing NDP and do need to be funded. They will come first.