People in north Dublin have lost all faith in the MetroLink project, an Oireachtas committee has heard, as it emerged that the project will not be completed until at least 2035 "all going well".
The project was first promised in 2005 by the then government in the Transport 21 Plan. When revised plans were announced in 2018, it was scheduled to be operational by 2027.
But the State agency in charge of transport infrastructure has indicated that it could be delayed well beyond that.
Chief Executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), Peter Walsh, told the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that he hopes Government approval will be grated in the coming two months and that a submission would be made to An Bord Pleanála in the second half of the year.
He said the planning process is out of the TII control and whether there is a judicial review challenge "will add a period of time that we cannot determine".
After that there would be a procurement processes taking two and a half years, followed by eight or nine years of construction, he said.
Asked by Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North-West, Paul McAuliffe, if 2035 was a ballpark timeline, given that it could take longer if there was a judicial review, Mr Walsh replied: "All going well, yes."
Deputy McAuliffe said: "It is hugely frustrating because the Government hasn't made a decision to delay this by ten years, but the project is looking like it could be delayed by ten years.
"Across north Dublin, people have lost complete faith in metro. There's a reason for that because it's a 20-year saga," he said.
Mr Walsh said €83 million has been spent on the project since it was rebranded from Metro North to MetroLink in 2018, when the preferred route was announced.
The Social Democrats co-leader, Catherine Murphy, pointed out that the figure for Metro North provided by the National Transport Authority under freedom of information laws, was €165.6m in addition to the €83m.
She said nearly a quarter of a billion euro has been spent "without a single shovel having gone in the ground".
Meanwhile, Mr Walsh said funding has been committed to fund road safety works on the N73 Mallow to Mitchelstown Road.
He was responding to the Labour Party TD for Cork East Seán Sherlock, who said if he travelled that road he would realise "just how awful a stretch of road it is, arguably one of the worst national secondary routes in the country".
Deputy Sherlock said this gives "great hope" but he said there should be a rebalancing of priorities so that national secondary routes "which are the main routes that serve counties by and large" should not have to compete for exchequer funding with major road projects.
"It shouldn't be a Samson versus Goliath situation, where the N73 is competing with the Macroom bypass," he said.
Mr Walsh responded: "There is only one pot of money."
Cycle route beside Luas removed from plans
A walking and cycling route to run alongside the proposed extension of the Luas Green line has been removed from plans at the request of the National Transport Authority (NTA), an Oireachtas Committee has heard.
Chief Executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has told the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that there has been a "change in the amount of cycle and walking provision in the Luas Finglas project"
since the original plans were drawn up by his agency which is charged with providing transport infrastructure and services on behalf of the State.
Mr Walsh said the plans were changed because the NTA has developed a separate cycling and walking strategy for the greater Dublin area and the TII would "act in compliance with that strategy.
Mr Walsh was responding to the Green Party TD for Dublin Central, Neasa Hourigan, who said that at a time when people are talking about female safety "a direct, well-lit route on a public transport avenue is completely different from a warren of backstreets and cycle lanes".
Mr Walsh said that the cycle and walking path along what is to be a 4km extension of the Luas Green Line, proposed by TII, was "a good design" but that "it always has to be subject to conformity with other strategies and policies in place".
Deputy Hourigan asked if the two separate plans - that of the TII and that of the NTA - were considered in the context of gender security or gender violence as well as from the perspective of safety and welfare of children.
But Etha Brogan, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transport, said she did not know and would have to ask the NTA.
Asked when the "warren" of cycling and walking infrastructure planned in the NTA strategy would be in place, Ms Brogan said that would depend on funding.
When the 4km extension of the Luas, from Broombridge to Charlestown, was put out for public consultation in July 2020, the Government said it would be constructed mostly in grass track to create "sustainable" transport links.
Launching the public consultation at the time, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said: "The Government is committed to improving sustainable public transport and I am pleased that there will be a pedestrian and cycling path along most of the route."
