Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

Of course - my point is that there are several points along the process where politics can further delay progress, such as now, before submission to ABP, and also after a Railway Order is granted, if that indeed happens.

And when politics gets involved, that inevitably leads to delays.

It has to go through the government spending cost review process now - he cannot influence that either way.

We will just have to wait on the outcome of that.

Was just reading that Daily Mail 10bn hit piece, there is no detail in it whatsoever to explain how we have gone from 3bn to 10bn. Granted with construction costs the 3bn was likely closer to 4bn but this other 6bn sounds like a figure just pulled out of the sky, 10 is a nice round figure too.

This line had me despairing, it feels like groundhog day all over again

The Dart spur was costed during the recession for only 300m at a time of high unemployment in the construction trades and yet never built. It would be open now had they spent the 300m. I know the country was broke but it wasnt that broke, we borrowed 4bn from the UK, Sweden and Denmark so I dont think asking for an extra 300m for infrastructure would have been outrageous in the grand scheme of things. While the Dart spur wouldnt have been a direct route at least it would have gotten the airport connected to the main Dublin to Belfast railway line. Plus it would have used existing station infrastructure. Hindsight is everything but its crazy that it was never done when the cost was negligible and a very cheap way to get a rail link to the aiirport.

Anyway just back to this 10bn costing. Swords to Charlemount is 20km or 12.4 miles. 10bn would give it a cost per mile of 806 million euros. Crossrail in London (which itself is way over budget and 3 years late) has a cost per mile of GBP202 million with a potential rise to 268 million per mile if the expected extra 4bn cost to finish it is added.

So even taking worst case scenario of Crossrail costing 19bn the per mile cost would be GBP268m or in euros 315m per mile. So Im not sure where the Daily Mail and senior civil servants are coming out with this 806m per mile cost for the Metrolink, the figure is clearly pulled out of their arse.

The Mail were obviously being fed bs by someone trying to derail the project, a Minister apparently. I would like to see questions asked of them on this, although I'm sure they won't give up their source. They, and all media, should be held to some sort of standards and not get away with printing blatant lies.

You've got to remember though, we're in era of lazy journalism and click bait articles. They can hide behind 'sources' and are never accountable. And its not just in regards to infrastructure reporting.

Equally we have politicians who speak from both sides of their mouth, they never give a straight answer, have absolutely no backbone and are constantly afraid of saying something for fear a journalist will bring it up again in the future.

Ryan or any other minister won't give a figure of costing as it will either come back to haunt them or they're afraid of being held to account.

And to add to the above, we have a population who by and large don't understand or care about infrastructure projects and only see the headline cost, never dig into the body of the article and instead focus on terms like 'will cost taxpayers....'

It may be hyperbolic, but this is 200 year infrastructure, so in that scale of things it is irrelevant. If only we could spread the cost over 200 years :P

He is like Rasputin. He simply can't be removed. In 100 years time his head suspended in formaldehyde and kept cognitive with AI will still be saying buses are enough and politicians will still be obeying him.

It's hard to tell but from the looks of the visualisation, and the layout released during the last consultation, that there is no direct link between Metrolink and Tara St station. The stairs/lifts for Metrolink should continue up to the Tara St platform level. Again, it's hard yo tell but it would be disappointing if the stations aren't integrated like that.

I highlighted it during the last consultation, it would be ridiculous if people with mobility difficulties or buggies come out of Metrolink beside Townsend St and have to make their way to the existing Tara St main entrance on the Quays in order to take the lift up to the DART platforms. There should be lifts provided by the Metrolink project serving Metrolink platform level, ground level and Tara St platform level.