Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

They did have a choice tbf - there were three projects and they chose the cheapest one (Luas Cross City). The difference in value was 8x, surprise surprise it won out.

The country had net migration of 3-4% of the population (mostly young working age) and 15% unemployment at peak. Add to that massive tax increases and welfare cuts. There isn't a hope in hell they were prioritising Metro North when the narrative of the time was that we had gone mad.

An ill informed rant ? Taken directly from the IMF website... I'm sure Chopra was ill informed too, was he ? There's some nice bed time reading at this link...

I understand it would have been politically difficult to proceed with it. But that's the issue with having incompetent cowards in government. If this scheme gets canned, that is the end of any serious capacity line to swords ... if they come out with a metro 3, I'll treat it as trolling...

https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/IRL/ireland-from-tiger-to-phoenix

"Ahead of the discussions with the troika, the government set out a detailed plan to reduce the budget deficit from 2011 to 2014. The challenge would be to do that while maintaining essential services and shielding the poor.

 Irish leaders “knew what the political constraints were, so they could choose the appropriate measures,” Chopra said. “Our role ended up being to tell them what the implications of certain measures might be, how it might affect distribution, how it might affect equality, and things like that, but the choice had to be theirs.”

Crickets From my above post, what a surprise... these fools, need to start putting billions aside, instead of squandering them, so of things do slow down, critical projects and areas, can still go ahead...

They have their election out of the way, no more cost of living supports... I read an article about it yesterday, they repeat then this year, they'll be there for another several years ..

people ignore your posts because you are a crank who posts nonsense.

why argue with stupid when they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience

Sure - look I know the tone from most posters here has been contentious but I'm very much pro-this project, I was just wondering whether those scenario estimates are including sunk cost. And indeed whether we have an idea of what the current sunk cost is.

Slight tangent but DCC have launched a survey regarding plans to develop a new leisure centre facility at Irishtown Stadium, replacing the existing Markievicz Sports and Fitness Centre which will be demolished as part of Metrolink;

I really like the cut of that guy's jib

He can do more as well. The capital cost figure isn't actually the cost to the exchequer. He mentions VAT as an add on, but a good chunk of the labour costs are made of tax, prsi which all return to the exchequer, same with materials through labour production, rents, rates, duties. There's the whole PPP element.

A simple infographic could be used to show the exchequer cost is much less than the headline figure. Highlight this against the project benefits for transport, housing, social and economic accessibility/development, tourism and market the hell out of it.

One of the objections to ML was something on the lines of "ML fails to comply with TEN-T policies because it can't properly integrate with DART services." Mind you "properly integrating" doesn't mean creating several interchange points that is a win-win for everyone. Instead it means that any train in the country would be able to use or something like that. Essentially they were asking for DART Underground 2, but as a complete metro this time to replace metro link.

Some people will find a way to complain. The trick though is that usually these aren't good faith arguments. The organisation that made that complaint puts out a lot of incoherent slop PT plans that seem to always be pushing for allowing more cars into Dublin CC. Some people expect there to be a frequent bus route that drops them off at their front door and will object to anything else. Other people have financial gain if PT in an area fails.

It is still good that they are trying to correct misinformation as while the people making those arguments may be making them in bad faith, some of the people hearing them might not know any better and may learn something new.