Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

They are required to fund the project otherwise the government has to pay them as works are done, which means they lose the control they have if the company has to make sure everything runs smoothly for decades in order to recoup the money to pay back their financiers. There is also the opportunity cost of that particular project eating up much of the capital budget, meaning you don't have funds for other projects.

The PPP company is not like a regular company. It is set up specifically for the execution of that particular contract, it doesn't have other liabilities or take on other contracts. It will have specific insurances, bond, parent company guarantees, collateral warranties, etc. Constituent companies within the PPP Co may go bust, but the PPP company remains and still has to fulfil its obligations or it doesn't get paid. If the entire PPP Co did somehow collapse, the government has the system they provided but doesn't have to pay them the rest of the money.

There is more risk of contractors going bust in a standard contractual arrangement. See Roadbridge where liabilities built up over many years eventually dragged them down, despite having a full order book and big income. If the company goes bust like that, the government could have paid out a lot money to them and end up having to pay more and wait longer to get the project completed than if the original contractor had completed it.

TII have no experience in heavy rail.

That’s the responsibility of the Infrastructure Management half of Iarnród Éireann, and specifically the New Works section.

The NTA set the parameters for all public transport projects, and then co-ordinate all of the investment with the Department of Transport.

I don’t see why that would be any sort of improvement? You’d just be moving people around for the sake of it.

There’s no interaction between road and rail projects - the synergy in creating TII was merging the back office support of the RPA and the NRA into one single unit to reduce costs. They’re completely different specialities.

The NTA make all of the decisions when it comes to all public transport investment.

There may not be much connection between heavy rail and road projects in technical/engineering terms, but there surely is in economic terms. I imagine that all major public investment projects are subject to some sort on consistent evaluation in terms of cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Thus, if there is a certain overall transport infrasctructure budget, its allocation between projects and transport modes should depend on CBA.

I know that this is getting a bit away from Metrolink, but the overall institutions and procedures for evaluating major public transport expenditures seems to me to be not very transparent or logical. There are other very important links which we should consider, for example access charges to the transport infrastructure and how these are inconsistent as between transport modes. But that's an argument for another place and time.

Here's more context on the PPP aspect. This is an answer from Peter Walsh, CEO of TII, during the press conference earlier in the week. This text answer is my transcription from 40:50 of this video https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1vOGwyEdVPrxB (caution: it likely contains transcription errors as I did this very quickly)

At a later point in the video Peter Walsh or Aidan Foley (MetroLink project director, TII) mentioned the difficulties Crossrail in the UK had getting started. There was lots of compliance documentation missing and complex IT/signalling issues to resolve. It's why Bond Street station on Crossrail still hasn't opened and why Crossrail is opening in disconnected phases.

TII hinted at the press conference that their expertise is in engineering and project delivery. It isn't in IT issues. They are out-sourcing that aspect into the PPP contract. Most importantly the PPP contract doesn't start paying out until the system is up and running moving passengers.

It seems like good self-awareness about what are their strengths.

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Calls for MetroLink to extend from Stephens Green to Tallaght | Newstalk

It's not a bad idea but why not just build this line first as planned. Planning for new lines can continue in parallel

Not sure that pre-empting Love Island for a 15 minute video of architectural renders would endear the wider public to the project, tbh

I haven't read the full article from Colm McCarthy in the Indo's website. But my goodness; if you read within the sub headline of that article which says ''Keeping Up With The Joneses''. That tells you a whole lot about the man's temperament when he talks about the country wanting to build major pieces of infrastructure.

He is ignorant, He is arrogant and he is also self serving to help to his further his own ego about being a so called expert on these matters while trying to beat this project down to a bloody pulp whenever he sees fit.

However I don't know what he is like outside of that sphere because I have not met the man on a personal level. But to me when you see a man like this who has lived in Dublin for such a long time; who has seen a good few improvements in Dublin's PT system over the past number of decades but still somehow refuses to see it's full potential for several more years into the future.

I mean let's face it; there are other countries around the world at this current time that have either an underground/overground metro system provided for their own population that are as wealthy with the world as their oyster see it or as poor as whatever you may describe in your own words. Countries located within Eastern Europe or In New Delhi in India are great examples which they are already hugely successful.

So why do people like McCarthy think that Ireland should not be allowed to have a slice of success from the underground metro pie.

People here who have already explained the reasons have probably done so. I mean what kind of sad person do you have to be publicly against projects like the DART, the Luas and Metrolink all within one city. I cannot really understand it at all.

There is no shortage of oddballs and head cases out there.

Why they are given the oxygen of publicity to potentially damage societies is beyond me.

Excellent public transport is an essential part of a more equal society. The ability to travel across a city, see friends and family, access education and employment should not be limited to those who can afford private transport.