Rail Network
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
============================================================

Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and acknowledge that this is an elongated process. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has been engaged with the process on behalf of the Department and twice met the people involved. The Deputy can take it from our side that we are not happy with progress, and I will come back on that further in the supplementary.
The national train control centre, NTCC, project aims to deliver a modern, safe and efficient rail traffic management system that can effectively meet the needs of a growing railway service in the coming decades. The NTCC building near Heuston was completed in November 2022, close to its initial target date and budget despite the significant disruption to the construction caused by Covid during its development. Bringing the centre into full operation has been delayed by slower-than-projected progress in developing and rolling out the new traffic management system, which is the software that integrates a range of complex railway systems, such as signalling and communications. As a result of these delays, the Minister met the NTA and the contractor responsible for the traffic management system, Indra Sistemas, last August and later on to express dissatisfaction with the rate of progress and emphasised the importance of project delivery. The Minister met them again in January at the opening of Indra Group's office in Dublin, which marked an important positive development for the project in terms of Indra's permanent presence in the Irish market and reiterated the importance of successfully progressing the project.
I understand that Iarnród Éireann has been actively engaging with Indra and testing software ahead of a major release in July, with commissioning phase 1 covering the Rosslare line targeted to go live in 2027. The timeline for future commissioning phases will be informed by phase 1, and the Department and the Minister will continue to keep the project under close review with a view to bringing its benefits to railway users as soon as possible.
It is important to note that traffic management is continuing to operate out of Connolly Station and there is no impact on railway safety as a result of delays in the introduction of the new system.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30