Rail Network
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Seán Canney (IND), Galway East

The Senator mentioned the co-ordination between crossings on our major routes. We will have a crossing on the N17 twice, I think. I convened a meeting earlier this year of Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, Galway County Council, Mayo County Council, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Irish Rail, so that we will end up doing a co-ordinated approach to this and that any of the blockages that are there or any of the issues that arise will be dealt with in the pre-planning stage. That is ongoing at the moment. I am confident that we are planning ahead rather than ignoring things and that the stakeholders are working together to make sure we will have - when we are finished - a rail line that is operable and also that the roads are operable as well.
The recommendation to open the line between Claremorris and Athenry will be the first major infrastructural project to be delivered under the strategy. That is important. It underscores the importance of the line for enhancing regional connectivity. When opened, it will link Ballina, Westport, Castlebar, Claremorris and Tuam down to Athenry, Ennis and Limerick, and into Foynes, Galway, Cork and Waterford ports. That will relieve the congestion for freight, which is apparent at the moment on the line going directly up to Dublin. It is important that we continue to develop that. The opening of the line from Limerick to Foynes Port gives us an extra outlet for importing, exporting and using freight as our means of transport.
In relation to the whole concept of transport within Europe and within the Presidency, and looking at what we will be doing in terms of the Connecting Europe Facility for the next five years, we have included ports as a very important part of that infrastructure funding, as well as the hinterlands to ports. Ports need to have direct access to rail or a road to get their goods and services out. That is very positive news for the future development and sustainability of our rail network.

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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/seanad/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24