Time is money. The long delays in getting the Metrolink project moving have led to a predictable surge in costs. In briefing documents given to Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, senior civil servants estimated that the cost could now be up to €23 billion, though a final figure will only be known at the procurement stage. And that will only be reached if the project gets through planning and receives the final go-ahead from the Government.
It is a familiar story, with political indecision, budgetary constraints and a slow planning process conspiring to delay a project that was first mooted as far back as 2002 and then abandoned after the financial crash. A planning decision had been due last year, but was delayed following the submission of new documents by Transport Infrastructure Ireland which were judged to require more oral hearings.
Delays in major projects tend to add to costs. According to analysis from the National Transport Authority, tender prices have increased by just over 30 per cent since 2021. Back then the estimated cost of Metrolink was between just over €7 billion and €12.25 billion. The delays also slow the coming on stream of benefits, with the project now unlikely to be up and running until the middle of the 2030s.
The projected additional cost will require the Government to be given a full, updated, business case and a new cost-benefit assessment to consider. Senior officials in the Department of Public Expenditure have warned that enough money has not been allocated to public transport in the 2026 to 2030 period in current plans and that a clear prioritisation is needed in the revised National Development Plan currently being drawn up.
Grá ar an Trá: What is the point of Gráinne Seoige in this incoherent pudding of a series?
Ireland is emerging from winter, but maybe hold off mowing your lawn for now
What’s a phage and why might your body be hosting thousands of them?
Author Torrey Peters: ‘Admitting to any sexual aspect to a trans identity can be politically dangerous. But I refuse to be silenced by bigots’
And this must be done transparently. The large sections redacted in the discussion of the Metro in the briefing notes to the Minister made available publicly may include some commercially-sensitive items, but all too often the public service goes well beyond what is necessary in this exercise. There is a strong case for Metrolink, which will serve not only the airport but also high population areas and the city centre. But it needs to be clearly and openly made.
There must be fears that the Metrolink timeline will slip further. It will be likely to have spent three years in planning by the time a decision is made and, as seen by the project to extend the Dart to Kildare and Meath, legal challenges can lead to further delay. A rigorous planning process is needed for these projects – but it needs to move much more quickly and there are real questions about the balance between objections and the wider national interest, and about the role of the courts in planning. We have been looking at the illustrations of what a metro for Dublin might look like for many years, but have still to see a shovel in the ground.
