Rail Network
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Pa Daly (SF), Kerry

There may not be difficulty with railway safety at the moment, but to say that progress has been slower than anticipated when €31.5 million has been spent without the first phase having been completed is surely the understatement of the year. I understand that there are between seven and nine phases to it and we have not even reached phase 1 despite that kind of expenditure. I do not need to go into the history of bike sheds, children's hospitals and so on but is there a danger that something similar will happen, given the snail's pace of this progress? It was presented as a flagship project. It was going to be the brain of the railway network and the NTA said it was a critical component of the national train control centre, but we cannot hide from this. The costs are massive, and people are keeping an eye on this at the moment with the cost-of-living crisis. I do not think that the progress, answers or reviews are good enough. The Department, the Minister and the wider Government need to take action.

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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