Councillors seek reopening of Meath rail line

Meath county councillors will today press for the reopening of the rail line from Dublin to Dunboyne at a meeting with Minister for Transport Martin Cullen.

A six-person delegation from the council will seek the reopening of the rail link to Pace, near Fairyhouse racecourse, with possible extensions to Navan and Kells.

Council chairman Brian Fitzgerald said the proposal enjoyed cross-party support in the county, which badly needed better public transport to serve "huge volumes" of commuter traffic.

A spokesman for Mr Cullen said the Meath rail link was one of a number of projects being examined for the Government's 10-year transport plan now being formulated.

The spokesman declined to comment on individual projects. However, one source said the Meath plan had "serious merit" because of the rapidly expanding population in the area.

A new campaign, Meath on Track, has also been launched to ensure that the M3 to be built through the county incorporates rail bridges to facilitate any future reopening of the track.

A spokesman for the campaign, Proinsias MacFhearghusa, said An Bord Pleanála recently stipulated that the N6 in Co Galway must have bridges included during its construction to facilitate a possible reopening of the Athenry to Limerick rail line.

"This shows we have been right all along; building across railway lines without bridging is a massive impediment to future reopenings. If this provision is not put in place now it is unlikely that the Dublin-Navan-Kells line will ever be reopened."

Mr MacFhearghusa said when the N7 was upgraded to the M7 bridging for the route of the old Naas line was omitted and later proved too costly. "As a result, Naas, despite being close to an existing line, is not serviced by a direct service to its town centre."

Iarnród Éireann has said reopening the line to Pace is dependent on extra capacity in Dublin city centre.

The company has told councillors the project would have a "very high negative rate of return" and would not be viable in strict financial terms.

The estimated cost of the extension to Pace is about €68 million for railway infrastructure, €40 million for property acquisition and €48 million for railcar fleet.

The Government's rail review in 2003 found there was no economic case for reopening the entire Dublin to Navan line, but did not consider the shorter section from Clonsilla to Pace.