Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

We'll probably delay planning permission until the next global crisis and then bin it again on cost grounds and on and on it goes. It takes far too long to develop these projects in Ireland.

Been saying it for years that this is the plan. Feign "progress" in the planning process but string it out long enough until the reason is there again to pull the plug.

It's so transparent this is all a charade.

If they really wanted to build it it would have been completed over a decade a go.

The politicians don't have the courage to scrap it so round and round we go and the smoke and mirrors will go on.

It makes total sense and that is how it has played out since 2005.

No politician wants to tell the residents in North Dublin, some of whom purchased homes on the basis they would get this service, that they've been had since the day Bertie first brought the metro proposal up.

There is no intention of the Dept of Finance funding this project and a shovel is never going in to the ground.

It's all the most transparent charade as I said but feel free to believe otherwise.

To clarify my position: I do not believe that it there is a strategy behind the cycle of delays and cancellations only for it all to restart once global crisis x or y has passed. I thinks it's simpy because it takes far too long to progress these large projects to construction that there is always an opportunity for a global crisis to come along and put paid to any given project. If things were progressed to construction as fast as Madrid or even Munich, we'd be compelled to finish them, crisis or no crisis. Nothing is safe until large scale works have properly begun.

Really? I see it the other way around. There is a strategy behind the cycles of delays and waiting for their usual money shot of a global crisis for them to kill it off until the MetroNUA project is announced five years later. In fact, I would take my life savings and bring to the bookies completely certain that'll I have booked a winner betting on this metro never being built for this reason alone.

They opened a platform in Cork last week as if it was Crossrail or the New York East Side project. That is their entire rail rail transport agenda from independence until the sun turns supernova. Cut costs, cheap fixes, big announcements. Loads of plans and consultants…RINSE-REPEAT.

If the State cancelled things because of every global crisis, Metrolink would have been cancelled during Brexit and also COVID-19.

I agree about all complaints on delays but really hate the conspiratorial stuff. It distracts from real improvements that can be made to projects like this.

I don't think they're deliberately conspiring but the lack of ambition and political will effectively produces the same result. That's why these projects don't survive crises and why 2027 - the year we were meant to be flying to the airport on Metro, zipping along new BusConnects corridors, and speeding down the country on DART - will limp into view with most of the promised projects not even started never-mind delivered.

I agree half the Government being gathered at the opening of an EU-funded train platform was staggeringly embarrassing (meanwhile the so-called Phase 2 projects that would actually sweat the new infrastructure and give Cork an excellent train network were quietly downgraded to "future possibilities"). But what else do they have to talk about? They've delivered less than nothing.

The only thing that will kill off the cynicism is to actually get these projects started and delivered.

Once Dubliners zip around on Metro within days they'll want another 5 lines. Maybe then we'll get a political constituency for it. The relative success of Luas shows it can be done even in an Irish context, especially when the ruined IE/CIE brand is removed from the picture.

I'm actually starting to think this may not actually happen again, the way the world is going. Hopefully I'm wrong. Wars galore kicking off. Trump. God knows what will happen in the next few years.

Currently on paper it should definitely happen though after being kicked around the courts.

So if it gets granted then it goes to getting bounced around the courts because of people objecting?

Is it possible that Luas Finglas gets a RO before this? This would be insane given part of the assumption of many has been that NTA slow rolled new Luas development in order to prioritise Metrolink and avoid people claiming that the Luas was a worthy substitution.

The only hope out of such an extended process is that it shuts off JR routes, however, the recent evidence has not been encouraging on that front.

I do think we need to consider that the timelines being stated build in that ABP further delay though.

The ducks are getting put in a row in the background at least.

Whatever happened with all the fanfare around restructuring ABP, increasing staff numbers etc?

Also what do the decision "deadlines" actually mean in practice? Given they can be completely ignored seemingly without consequence I guess it's just a meaningless placeholder