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Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Decision on €9bn Metrolink rail project expected within weeks
A decision on the MetroLink rail line, which has spent almost three years in the planning system, is expected to be issued within weeks, An Coimisiún Pleanála documents show. The 18.8km line from Swords to Charlemont, with 16 stops serving areas including Dublin Airport and the city centre, is the largest infrastructure project before the planning commission, which took over from An Bord Pleanála last month. Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) lodged a planning application for the mostly-underground line with An Bord Pleanála in September 2022. At the time the State transport body anticipated a 12-18 month planning process, and said if permission was then granted, and the final business case for the line approved by the Government, MetroLink would take six to eight years to construct. In August 2023, the board confirmed it would hold public hearings on the project. The hearings opened on February 19th 2024 and closed on schedule on March 28th. However, with just two days to go before the end of the hearing, board inspector Barry O'Donnell said there would be a 'requirement to re-advertise' the project due to new information submitted by TII. READ MORE [ The Irish Times view on building infrastructure: design is not a luxury Opens in new window ] TII had submitted close to 200 additional documents during the hearing, including 39 on the first day. Public consultation on the additional information was reopened in August last year and closed in October. A decision on the project, expected to cost more than €9.5 billion, has been awaited since. The board, and now the commission, does not generally discuss live cases. However, briefing documents submitted to an Oireachtas infrastructure committee state a decision on the Metrolink project is due to be issued 'by end of summer'. This is the first indicative timeline the board, or the commission has given for a decision on the project. A grant of permission in the coming weeks, could allow to the line to begin operations by its most recent target date of 2035. In September MetroLink director Sean Sweeney plans to hold a series of 'global market briefings' to drum up interest from firms with the capacity to develop the project. The first briefing will be held Dublin on September 4th, with similar events in Berlin, Paris, Milan, London, Vienna and Madrid to be held later in the month. Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien, through whose north Dublin constituency the metro will run, is expected to attend the first market briefing in Dublin. It is anticipated the commission's decision will have been issued in advance of these briefings. If a grant of permission is received TII must then seek indicative tenders for construction of the line, before formulating a final business case, which it will submit to the Government for approval. It is at this point the probable cost of the line will be known, however it is expected to be at least 20 per cent higher than the previous €9.5 billion estimate. Before its application in 2022 TII had to submit a preliminary business case, which included potential costs, to secure Government approval to lodge the Metrolink application with the board. At that time €9.5 billion was the midpoint of a 'credible' cost range of €7.16 billion-€12.25 billion. However, €23 billion was cited as the extreme upper limit of costs, if all potential risks and overruns were to be eliminated. In May Mr O'Brien told The Irish Times Metrolink remained a 'high priority' for Government. 'The Metrolink is a critically important project, not just for the airport and the region but nationally too. I want to see construction work begin on the Dublin Metro during this term of Government,' he said.
Irish Independent
07-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
The Indo Daily: The €550,000 man - but is Sean Sweeney our MetroLink messiah or future fall guy?
Remember the name – Sean Sweeney, a man of meditation, motorbikes and bold metropolitan vision. With his signature secured last summer, he's our latest 'Metrolink Maverick' tasked with revolutionising Dublin city's transport infrastructure, and he's being paid over half a million euro to do it. All he has to do is get the MetroLink plan up, running and over the line. Should be no big deal, right? After all, it's not like it has been awkwardly languishing for 24 years. Still, Mr Sweeney has time on his side, with recent proclamations that the project is unlikely to be completed by 2035 still ringing in people's ears like a loud train whizzing by. Sweeney is now looking for bidders to help fund the operation, at a mere €30m a pop. Today on The Indo Daily, Dave Hanratty is joined by Sunday Independent journalist Niamh Horan, and by Irish Independent Political Correspondent Gabija Gataveckaite, to profile an especially colourful CEO, and to ask the question – is the Dublin MetroLink the biggest mess in government history?
Hindustan Times
19-06-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
GDA seeks ₹2,400 cr for 21 infrastructure projects
Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has submitted a list of 21 infrastructure projects to the Uttar Pradesh housing and urban planning department and sought ₹2,441.9 crore as funds for their execution, officials said Wednesday. Officials said a demand was raised to seek funds under the 16th Finance Commission. The list of projects includes demand for funds for major projects like the Metro extension from Sector 62, Noida to Sahibabad, for construction of slip roads of the Hindon elevated road; for multi-level automated parking in Raj Nagar District Centre; for redevelopment and beautification of 124 acres of city forest at Karhera; and for development of different zonal plan roads, among other facilities. 'The list of 21 projects and the funds required has been sent to state officials. The GDA has only sought the construction costs involved, and the land costs would be borne by the authority,' said GDA media coordinator Rudresh Shukla. The discussions about funds were held during a video conference on May 14, officials said. Senior UP housing board officials recently visited Ghaziabad, and sought construction of two slip roads to join the 10.3 kilometre (km) Hindon elevated road. Under the plan, the GDA has proposed to build two ramps on the Hindon Elevated Road - an entry ramp in Indirapuram on the carriageway from Raj Nagar Extension to UP Gate and an exit ramp in Vasundhara on the carriageway from UP Gate to Raj Nagar Extension. The GDA has sought ₹200 crore funds to execute the project. As regards the Metro extension, the plans have been underway since 2020, but the denial of funding by the state government has hindered the project. In January 2020, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) submitted two detailed project reports (DPRs) to GDA -- one of ₹1,517 crore for the Sector 62 to Sahibabad route, and the other of ₹1,808.22 crore for the Vaishali to Mohan Nagar route. In 2023, the authority decided to go ahead with the Sector 62 to Sahibabad route. The UP government had denied funds for the link in January 2023. Later, in May 2023, it again declined the authority's request for 50% funding for the proposed Metro Link. In January 2024, the DMRC submitted revised cost estimates of ₹1,873.31 crore for this route. The GDA in its list has now sought funds of ₹1,873.31 crore for the Metro extension. 'Since GDA has limited funds, it has sought funding for these 21 projects from the Centre's 16th Finance Commission. The authority, with a lot of effort, was able to settle its two major loans amounting to about ₹1,500 crore in April. So, we now intend to go ahead with these projects,' Shukla added.
The Guardian
13-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Dublin is the only large European capital without a metro: what would Leopold Bloom make of that?
Ireland's planning body, An Bord Pleanála, will determine later this year the fate of an ambitious proposal to build the country's first underground railway. Residents of the Irish capital won't be holding their breath, however. Since it was first proposed 25 years ago, MetroLink has been cancelled, revived and rebranded. The latest version of the plan, which involves just 18.8km of track, has been subject to delays, costs that have spiralled to five times the original estimate, and fierce opposition from homeowners, heritage bodies and businesses. A wide-awake city of tech firms, theatres and tourist attractions, Dublin is one of the EU's richest metropolitan areas; it is also the only large western European capital without a metro. No Dubliner would have been more frustrated with the situation's absurdities, and MetroLink's slow progress, than Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce's Ulysses. Transport is never far from Bloom's thoughts as he traverses the city on 16 June 1904. His wife Molly's infidelity, the death of his friend Paddy Dignam, and fatherhood are uppermost in the advertising canvasser's mind, but he also repeatedly ruminates on a plan to build 'a tramline along the North Circular from the cattle market to the quays'. What begins as a passing observation about the scheme's likely impact on property prices near his home on Eccles Street becomes a fully fledged policy proposal by the day's end. Ulysses is a peripatetic story. For 17 or so hours, Bloom walks across Dublin, encountering friends, acquaintances and foes. From his 'sober' morning stroll down Westland Row, where he meets the disreputable CP M'Coy, to the 'parallel courses' that he and the inebriated poet Stephen Dedalus follow from Beresford Place to Eccles Street, Bloom covers nearly nine miles on foot. It is little wonder how tired he is by the time he climbs into bed next to Molly. A first-rate flâneur, Bloom is also a keen student of Dublin transport, which continually vexes him. On Westland Row, he is distracted from M'Coy's tedious talk by a white-stockinged woman leaving the Grosvenor hotel. When a 'heavy tramcar honking its gong' obscures his line of sight, Bloom curses the driver's 'noisy pugnose'. Later that evening, the adman witnesses a drunken altercation between Dedalus and his disloyal companion, Buck Mulligan, at Westland Row station. Concerned for Dedalus's safety, Bloom follows the young man to Nighttown, but the good samaritan misses his stop. By the time Bloom reaches Dublin's red-light district, Dedalus is about to have his jaw bashed in by two British soldiers. These are not the only instances in Ulysses in which the city's transport system is uncooperative. At Nelson's pillar, a hoarse-voiced timekeeper dispatches trams with great energy for Rathgar and Terenure, Sandymount Green and Palmerston Park. However, the trams soon stand motionless after a power cut. As 'Hackney cars, cabs, delivery waggons, mailvans, private broughams' and 'aerated mineral water floats' rattle by, the traffic that Bloom seeks to alleviate with his plan worsens. 'I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the parkgate to the quays. All those animals could be taken in trucks down to the boats,' suggests Bloom to his fellow mourners, as Dignam's funeral cortege crawls to Glasnevin cemetery. The tramline should be extended there, Bloom adds, to run 'municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan'. Bloom's passion for public works is longstanding and not surprising for a character who in his youth had considered standing for parliament and who in Joyce's imagination subscribed to 'the collective and national economic programmes' of radical Irish nationalists. Although Bloom's political fervour has waned, he remains a nationalist. To him, nationalism is not about the Irish language, which he doesn't speak, or political violence, which he abhors. It is about the opportunity to govern Ireland for the better, starting with infrastructure. In pre-independence Ireland, British power is ever present in Dublin on 16 June 1904. It is also palpably decaying. The viceregal cavalcade carrying the king's representative in Ireland through the city goes 'unsaluted' by a resident pondering whether it is quicker to get to Phibsborough 'by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot'. Here again, Dublin's system of public transport is found wanting, but the viceroy is neither interested nor empowered to act. In Nighttown, Bloom experiences a frightening phantasmagoria in which he is suddenly appointed lord mayor of Dublin. His immediate suggestion that the city builds a tramline 'from the cattlemarket to the river' provokes vigorous nods from the assembled aldermen, but the crowd soon threaten Bloom with boiling oil. Back home in Eccles Street, Bloom gives free rein to his political imagination as part of a bedtime ritual which produces 'sound repose and renovated vitality'. However, his train of thought soon circles back to what has by now become a detailed policy prospectus for the new tramline. The scheme will be funded, he suggests, by 'graziers' fees' and guaranteed by 'eminent financiers'. Ulysses's fixation with transport minutiae doesn't just provide colour and comic relief. It carries Joyce's own hopes for a new Ireland that realises its potential. Through his increasingly intricate tram scheme, Bloom symbolises the sort of progressive reformer that the writer believes can cure the country's political paralysis. Molly Bloom, in contrast, embodies Joyce's simultaneous fear that Irish politics will forever be all talk. Her husband's sermons about Sinn Féin are no more than 'trash and nonsense', she suggests. Public investment and technology have transformed Dublin for the better since 1904, but Leopold Bloom would still recognise its transport system's many deficiencies. Its cost. Its patchy coverage. Its occasional power cuts. Recent studies suggest that the Irish capital is one of the most congested cities in the world and that its public transport is among the least affordable in Europe. From London's Crossrail to the Grand Paris Express, European cities are upgrading their public transport systems, but Ireland's notoriously centralised governing structures have left its capital with limited say over its own development. An elected mayor would help, but this idea is no closer to reality than during Bloom's fevered visit to Nighttown. After 25 years of talk, MetroLink needs to see light at the end of the tunnel soon. However frustrated Bloom would have been over the project's delays, he would have nodded vigorously at its proposed route, especially the section from Glasnevin to Mater station on his own Eccles Street. Now, if only the planners insisted on livestock wagons and funeral cars, Dublin would have a scheme worthy of its most famous fictional resident and the 'world's greatest reformer'. Dermot Hodson is professor of political economy at Loughborough University and the author of Circle of Stars: A History of the EU – and the People Who Made It
The Journal
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Journal
Construction of MetroLink project may not begin until 2028, transport committee to hear
CONSTRUCTION OF THE MetroLink underground rail project in Dublin may begin as late as 2028, the National Transport Authority will tell the Oireachtas committee on transport today. The government is expected to include the MetroLink in its National Development Plan (NDP), which is being revised at the moment by Minister for Public Expenditure and NDP Delivery Jack Chambers. The committee will be told that tendering for the construction work may commence next year, as long as An Bord Pleanála approves the project and there are no delays caused by judicial reviews. Once the tendering process is complete, construction would commence 18 months later, the NTA will tell the committee. The project's director Sean Sweeney said last week that he expects some public opposition to the route and the disruption that construction will cause to traffic. He said that in the age of social media, 'two people can run a campaign' against something. Advertisement Sweeney also noted that there were riots in the streets of Amsterdam before the metro was opened there, only for it to be broadly welcomed within days of coming online. Overall though, Sweeney said he has never worked on a project with such potential benefit to the public. 'The benefits are off the scale in my view,' he said. As for the cost of the massive infrastructure project, Sweeney said it is being 'recalibrated' following delays in the planning process. In 2021, the Metrolink was estimated to cost between €7 billion and €12 billion. 'The number is going to change,' said Sweeney. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
