Rail Network Dail Éireann — 2026-05-12 ============================================================ Ryan O'Meara (FF), Tipperary North I will raise with the Minister of State the issues my constituents are facing in relation to the Limerick to Ballybrophy rail line, which travels through north Tipperary and stops in Birdhill, Nenagh, Cloughjordan and Roscrea. I will begin by acknowledging the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership, which has highlighted the potential of this line and the issues facing it for many years. I will start with some of the issues facing the line. According to local media, commuters in Nenagh were recently locked out of the railway station because the gate to the station was locked. The gate is locked when the station is not in use. The station is actually rarely in use, which is one of my biggest issues. Those trying to travel that day missed their train and their connections. There are also other issues. No real-time information is provided. Services are cancelled and replaced by buses. Journey times are excessively long and travel times on this regional line are mind-bogglingly inconvenient. It is now 10.30 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Before I came down to the Chamber, I decided to look at what my travel times would be like if I were travelling on the rail line tomorrow. If I wanted to depart Nenagh for Dublin tomorrow, the earliest I could arrive in Dublin, if using local rail, is 9.53 a.m. That is not much use if you are commuting for work. If I wanted to depart Dublin tomorrow to get home to Nenagh, I would have two options. I could choose the 3 p.m. or 6 p.m. service. The 6 p.m. brings me back by the Ballybrophy line but the 3 p.m. brings me from Dublin to Limerick Junction, Limerick Junction to Limerick Colbert and then Limerick Colbert back out the Ballybrophy line. If I wanted to travel from Cloughjordan or Roscrea to Limerick, the earliest I could arrive in Limerick in the morning is 10.08. Again, that is not much use if you are trying to commute for work. If I wanted to depart Limerick, the only time I could leave that is any bit convenient, but not really, is 5.10 in the evening. My other option is to leave at a quarter to six and travel from Limerick to Limerick Junction, Limerick Junction to Ballybrophy and then back out again. I say that at the risk of sounding like one of the D'Unbelievables while I give that example. The programme for Government states many things about public transport, particularly on rail lines. One of those points is a commitment to develop additional track capacity, electrification, increased line speeds and new routes to enhance and develop rail services. We already have the track in place on the Ballybrophy line but we want increased speed times and faster journey travel across north Tipperary, and that is a very reasonable request. We do not need a new route. The route is already there. We need faster travel times, more frequent services, more reliability of services and better infrastructure at our stations. That infrastructure point is important because Nenagh could have a transport hub at Nenagh railway station if we could get the investment. It is key to all of this, to getting the station open when it should be open, getting the physical station open and so that those commuting are not facing that locked gate as we saw previously. On top of that, a transport hub in Nenagh railway station would allow the bus stops to move out of the centre of the town and up to the train station to create a real transport hub for Nenagh. Back in January, Councillor J.P. O'Meara and I met the NTA in its headquarters in Dublin to discuss that transport hub. One of the key points to that is funding. It is a large investment, but Tipperary County Council has the plans, and we deserve that investment in north Tipperary for a key transport hub. --- 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/2026-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-12