Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 25 January 2024
Committee on Public Petitions
Campaign for a Walking and Cycling Greenway on the Closed Railway from Sligo to Athenry: Discussion
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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The next item of business is our engagement with representatives of the Western Rail Trail campaign group, petition No. P00030/23, on creating a walking and cycling greenway on the closed railway from Sligo to Athenry.
Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or of those who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. They are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Before we hear from the witnesses, I propose we publish their opening statements on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed. On behalf of the committee, I wish to extend a warm welcome to members of the Western Rail Trail campaign, as well as the campaigners from Sligo, Mayo and Galway. These include, from the Western Rail Trail, Mr. Brendan Quinn and Mr. John Mulligan; from the Sligo Greenway Co-op, Councillor Marie Casserly from Sligo County Council; from the Kiltimagh-East Mayo Greenway campaign, Ms Bernice Brennan; and from the Quiet Man Greenway campaign in Tuam, Galway, Mr. Shaun Cunniffe. Mr. Michael Maye from the East Mayo Greenway Campaign is in the Public Gallery.
I suggest that the witnesses make their opening statements for approximately ten minutes. When all witnesses have made their opening statements, we will have questions and comments from members. Each member will have approximately ten minutes, which will allow members to come in for a second round of questions if they need to. I now call on Mr. Brendan Quinn to make his opening statement. Perhaps he will introduce the colleague who is next to speak when he has completed his statement.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and the committee for this opportunity to present our views to the Oireachtas. When I started this petition, I had no idea how it would be received. The astonishing number of more than 27,000 people who have signed this petition are in the main from the west of Ireland or are west of Ireland diaspora. These are real people who have expressed a real opinion. Sligo, Mayo and Galway are the three counties through which the closed railway from Collooney, County Sligo to Athenry, County Galway, runs.
There are three stories to tell. As this effort is the combination of three separate campaigns, the Sligo Greenway Co-op, the East Mayo Greenway campaign and Galway’s Quiet Man Greenway campaign, three people sitting alongside me will each give an overview on how they see the greenway benefiting these three counties. These include Councillor Marie Casserly from Sligo County council, Bernice Brennan from Kiltimagh, County Mayo, and former Galway councillor, Shaun Cunniffe, from Tuam. John Mulligan, who has supported this campaign consistently, is also here to give an overview to the committee on the arguments about whether there should be a railway, a greenway, or both.
We recognise that there is another part of this debate. There is a view from some people that the closed railway may actually be re-opened sometime in the future. We hold a pragmatic view. What the State holds in this closed railway route is a continuous piece of land in public ownership. The Department of Transport has called it a “transport corridor”. Placing a greenway on a closed railway route is an international best-practice option to protect a route until such time as a railway is possible. If a railway should ever be re-opened on any part of this route in the future, incorporating a greenway alongside would be a perfectly feasible option.
There is little doubt of the economic benefit this idea would bring to the west of Ireland. I call the economic boom from greenways going through rural areas “greenwaynomics”. It is an amazing phenomenon we all know about, where rural areas discover new economic prosperity simply because of a greenway going through their village, town or townland.
We are here today to ask for our voices to be heard, in particular the voices from County Mayo and County Galway. Let me explain why this is. In 2012, John Mulligan and I met Deputy Alan Kelly, who was Minister of State at the Department of Transport, at a time when none other than Leo Varadkar was Minister for Transport. The then Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, told us, "You pushing at an open door, lads". He agreed with our idea. However, he also told us we needed to get the county councils on board. That was the start of our journey. We needed to get the county councils to adopt the idea and that meant we had to influence changes in the respective county plans. We are still on that journey. We were successful in Sligo, where we finally got the Sligo greenway idea on the closed railway written into the county plan. Councillor Casserly will tell us more about that. In Mayo, we needed to influence the council to adopt the idea of a greenway on the closed railway, in particular, north of Charlestown to Claremorris, and this is a real sticking point.
Over the past decade, we have met with inexplicable opposition to our idea from Mayo County Council. In 2013, Mayo County Council received approximately 400 submissions on the county plan asking for a greenway on this route but did not adopt the idea and did not even mention it in the county plan. Mayo County Council has been aware of the level of public support for a greenway on the route since 2013.
Eight years later, if we fast forward to 2021, a new county plan was due to cover the period from 2022 to 2028. This time, along with this petition, Mayo County Council received 1,000 submissions on the county plan asking for a greenway on the railway route, which accounted for more than 80% of all submissions received on the county plan. However, of huge significance were submissions from the landowners, Irish Rail, and the Department of Transport, which both supported the idea of a greenway running from Charlestown on the Sligo-Mayo border, south to Claremorris. We feel it is very important the committee understands that north of Claremorris there is virtually zero chance of a railway ever being reopened. Because of this known fact, there is simply no rational reason from Mayo County Council to oppose the use of the closed railway as a greenway on this part of the route.
I have mentioned that Irish Rail and the Department of Transport made submissions to Mayo County Council. It is the only time in this presentation that I will refer to a slide. Irish Rail expressed:
...support for the development of greenways in locations where the railway does not have a short to medium term viable business case for reintroduction of services. In terms of the Western Rail Corridor, this conditional support is subject to the section north of Claremorris.
That was said by the landowner, Irish Rail. The Department of Transport said that it "welcome[s] the protection of the Western Rail Corridor as a 'Transport Corridor rather than solely as a railway line'" and that "consideration could be given at a future time for the construction of a greenway on or beside the alignment of the railway line. This would be particularly welcomed ... from Claremorris to Charlestown."
The response from Mayo County Council to 1,000 submissions from the general public and the two very clear submissions from the landowner and the Department of Transport that would fund such a greenway project was little short of astonishing. The county councillors, against the advice of the county manager, and in opposition to the views of 1,000 public submissions, as well as against the specific recommendations of both the landowner, Irish Rail, and the Department of Transport, took it upon themselves to specifically oppose these ideas and inserted an objective into the Mayo county plan, which stated re the MTO9 MCC county plan:
That the Western Rail Corridor (WRC) is protected and preserved for the delivery of Rail Infrastructure to develop the region and the corridor is completely removed from any feasibility study in relation to any proposed greenway.
This objective in the county plan went out of its way to block the views of the 27,000 people who signed this petition, the 1,000 submissions on the county plan, and the views of both Irish Rail and the Department of Transport. That is the main reason we are here today.
At every twist and turn of this debate, Mayo County Council has gone out of its way to suppress even the consideration of what we are proposing, and in total opposition to the views of the Department of Transport and the landowner, Irish Rail. Mayo County Council has built into the county plan a written objective that blocks even a feasibility study. What it has done is almost dictatorial. That is a huge part of the reason we are here today - the sheer intransigence of Mayo County Council on this matter.
On the Galway section of the line, the council response has been an uphill struggle for this campaign. We have support for our ideas on Galway County Council, and we also have opposition, which is fair enough, but at least Galway County Council did not stifle democratic debate. The railway route has been part of a feasibility study, which was published recently, so there is some movement in that area. There is also the all-island strategic rail review, which will be referred to later by my fellow petitioners here today. I am now going to hand over to Councillor Marie Casserly to explain what is happening in Sligo.
Ms Marie Casserly:
I am very pleased to be able to inform the committee that Sligo County Council has listened to the public and taken heed of what people have been saying in Sligo. Mr. Quinn has outlined how the campaign has had to persuade the county councils to come on board. I am pleased to confirm that, as far as Sligo is concerned, the council is firmly in favour of the Sligo greenway, which will run on the closed railway line from Collooney, southwards to the Sligo-Mayo border at Bellahy-Charlestown, until such time as a railway might be economically viable. This part of the route will be known as the "Sligo Greenway". However, this is only part of a much bigger project which Sligo County Council is working on with the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Working with the local authorities in Leitrim and Cavan and the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, a cross-Border project has been agreed to develop a greenway on the closed railway route from Enniskillen to Collooney and to continue then on to Charlestown. This cross-Border co-operation is part of the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement and has benefited from the shared island fund.
The Department of Transport, working with Transport Infrastructure Ireland, has already invested more than €500,000 in taking the plans for this long-distance, cross-Border greenway through the first development stages. Sligo County Council is now working closely with these agencies to take the project to the next stages of planning and ultimately construction. The Sligo greenway will be of huge significance to the region. It will benefit tourism and be a huge local amenity for communities along the route.
It is important for the committee to take note that, as far as Sligo is concerned, the Sligo section of the western rail trail greenway will happen, and it is such a pity the same cannot be said for Mayo. As a member of Sligo County Council, I have made representations to Mayo County Council to consider joining with Sligo to extend the Sligo greenway down through Mayo as far as Claremorris and to allow east Mayo to benefit from the tourism boom this would bring to the region. If the Sligo greenway could connect through Mayo to the great western greenway, just imagine the benefits this would bring to the region. It would simply be a huge economic benefit for the region and it would be a huge social benefit to people in towns such as Charlestown, Swinford, Kiltimagh and Claremorris.
I am keeping my comments short, but I ask the committee to bring our thoughts to all the Departments concerned so that they listen to the people in Mayo and Galway. The idea of a greenway along this closed railway is quite simply a no-brainer.
An American diplomat, George Ball, said: "Nostalgia is a seductive liar." Like a talented seductress, nostalgia will rope you in and cause you to lose sight of reality. It will present you with a sugar-coated version of the past - sweet enough to dampen the present and colourful enough to cast a shadow on the future.
My vision for our country is to have an all-island, all-Ireland, cross-Border, cross-community necklace of greenways that will change Ireland's future positively for many decades to come. We owe this to our future generations. This is not a dream, but a feasible and attainable goal if we work together and harness the power of greenways to transform our island into a model of sustainability, inclusivity and well-being.
Ms Bernice Brennan:
I live in Kiltimagh, County Mayo, and work part time as a teacher. I have three children, aged 15, 12 and nine, all of whom go to school in Kiltimagh. I am here today for them and for the future generations. In east Mayo we have looked at the success of greenways on closed railway lines throughout the country and seen the way they have changed communities, bringing economic and social development to rural areas.
Committee members may have heard of the book No One Shouted Stop, by John Healy, which was first published in 1968. It is about the social and economic demise of the west, among other things. John Healy was originally from Charlestown, County Mayo. In this book he mentions the "black triangle" of east Mayo, an area that covers Charlestown, Swinford and Kiltimagh. Thankfully, things are not as dark in this area now as are described in this book but it is still an area crying out for the impetus to create jobs. A greenway would provide such an impetus, and not only create jobs, but it would revitalise the whole region. It would boost local economies and improve the physical, mental and social health of our communities.
The closed railway line running north of Claremorris to Charlestown and on to Sligo is simply not going to reopen anytime soon. We all know that. Every report on the western rail corridor has said this. Reopening this section of the railway line is not even included as a target in the national all-island rail review. With this in mind, it is such a pity that Mayo County Council has not supported this project as Sligo County Council has. We hope it will ultimately change its mind. However, it must be said that Mayo County Council has been inconsistent on this issue, as it supported the use of 6 km of the closed railway line in Kiltimagh for the Velorail facility. This effectively means that Mayo County Council has accepted the fact that the closed railway line north of Claremorris, running through Kiltimagh, should be available for leisure purposes.
They have allowed this Velorail project, but they are blocking a greenway. While the Velorail is an interesting idea, it is not a facility that local people use much. It involves renting carts, as members can see in the picture, which are pedalled along a short section of the closed railway line, which people have to pay for. A greenway would be free to use.
When the Velorail was under consideration for the planning process, there were more than 200 submissions on the planning application asking for a greenway to be placed alongside the closed railway line being used for the Velorail. Believe me, there is huge support for the east Mayo greenway in the areas of Claremorris, Kiltimagh, Swinford and Charlestown on the closed railway route.
It is not just about tourism for the area. It is about creating an amenity that the local people will use and will be part of the attraction for wanting to live and work in the area. Mr. Quinn mentioned the term “greenwaynomics”. Members should please think about where we are placed on the greenway route we want to see happening in County Mayo. Imagine how a greenway from Sligo through Mayo and on to Athenry in Galway would bring visitors and tourists into the area, creating jobs for our young people. Imagine people arriving into Knock Airport in County Mayo, renting a bike and cycling along this route.
In Kiltimagh, where I live, the disused line is very close to the primary school. Children would be able to walk, cycle, scoot, etc., to and from school, a practice that the Government's own Safe Routes to School programme encourages. A new greenway would become part of our local infrastructure, linking the communities; an amenity that could provide a safe place for all members of our communities and visitors alike that is accessible to all - our children, our grandparents, wheelchair users, cyclists and those using bikes, buggies, scooters, etc.
We are so lucky to have right on our doorstep such a potentially life-enhancing space but, sadly, we are not allowed to access it. It is to the detriment of the people who live in the towns and townlands of Claremorris, Swinford, Kiltimagh and Charlestown, as well as those who are visiting our area, that this widely supported opportunity to truly revitalise our local communities is being denied to us without any consideration. In east Mayo, all we want to see is a wasted asset bought back to life. Resurrected and reinvented, we know the east Mayo greenway will have the power to change lives for the better in our area. We just need to be listened to and for the reality of the situation to be recognised. Go raibh míle maith agaibh.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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To be clear, that is not the Velorail in Kiltimagh we are looking at right now.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I just wanted to make that clear.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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That possibly could have happened.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I thank Ms Brennan. She knows that area and we appreciate her coming along today. The next witness we have today, and we will try to move things along as quickly as possible, is a former councillor from Galway County Council, Mr. Shaun Cunniffe, a Tuam resident who has been a committed supporter of the idea for a greenway route along the closed railway from Athenry to Tuam and onwards to Mayo for many years. I thank Mr. Cunniffe for coming here from Galway today. Can he now give us the Galway view, please?
Mr. Shaun Cunniffe:
I offer my sincere thanks to the Cathaoirleach and committee for having us here today. My name is Shaun Cunniffe. I was a serving councillor on Galway County Council until 2019 and was part of many debates and discussions about the complementary use of the closed railway alignment from Athenry to Claremorris as a greenway initially and should a business case ever recommend the reinstatement of a railway, then to use this broad alignment for both. Bord Fáilte attended our Tuam municipal meetings and requested that we develop this greenway and detailed the success of the great western greenway in Mayo in which it had invested.
Mr. Barry Kenny from Irish Rail explained that if ever a railway was to be reinstated, all the track, sleepers and foundations, which is the ballast, would all be replaced with modern rail infrastructure and that there would be very heavy machinery involved so if a greenway was temporarily on the railway, it could simply be moved to one side of the alignment and fenced off.
The campaign for the Galway section of the line to be given the greenway treatment is known as "The Quiet Man" greenway campaign, a name that comes from the famous 1950s film that was shot on location using the station at Ballyglunin, known as Castletown in the movie, which ranks as one of the most recognisable rail stations in American cinematographic history.
Being from Tuam, I know there is overwhelming support for the greenway. The petition we are talking about today has more than 9,000 signatures from people based in Galway. In September 2018, more than 3,000 people marched in Tuam on a Sunday afternoon to apply pressure on Galway County Council to support the idea of a feasibility study on the greenway.
The feasibility study funded by Transport Infrastructure Ireland was finally published in November 2023. This study looked at the choice of routes that might be available for a greenway from Athenry to Tuam and on to the county border with Mayo at Milltown. The detailed feasibility study concluded that the preferred option for a greenway in terms of environmental impact, costs and deliverability was to use the closed railway alignment. We know it makes common sense to do this, so why will it not happen?
The reason is that there is still a legacy cohort of opinion, contrary to all the conclusions of all independent reports, which considers a railway on this route a possibility. However, this cohort is now prioritising rail freight because the established criteria for the reinstatement of a passenger service are simply absent. Demographic data details that the extremely low and dispersed population along the route, the presence of a new motorway alongside this alignment and excellent private bus services all negate any case for passenger services.
Despite being unable to supply our greenway group or local media with the name of any company in County Galway that requires freight, they are holding fast. Equally, they can offer no explanation as to why Galway city, with a mainline rail and numerous powerful companies employing tens of thousands of staff, does not use or seek the use of rail freight, nor can they name one IDA announcement in the last ten years anywhere in Ireland that requires rail freight.
In 2023, the new all-island strategic rail review was published and despite the known facts of every independent report that has been published on the western rail corridor, we were told that the railway was going to go ahead at some stage in the future between Athenry and Claremorris, apparently for freight only, but with no promises of when this might happen.
Sadly, there is no promise of a railway happening in the near future and no promise of a greenway happening. We know from the feasibility study that this is the best and only route for a greenway to connect Mayo, so why wait? The argument to build the greenway now and if a railway is to happen, to put a railway with a greenway in alongside it in the future, has never been stronger.
The 42 km great western greenway in County Mayo generated a local economic benefit of €39 million in 2016, creating more than 910 new permanent jobs, direct and indirect. This economic impact is eminently possible along "The Quiet Man" greenway, which is the Tuam to Milltown section.
Our political system in east Galway needs to explain why we are spurning such vital economic impetus when emigration of our young people is mushrooming. Surely, for the sake of our children and the survival of our communities, our schools and our LGFA, GAA and other sporting clubs, we can come to a resolution. After all, politics is so often championed as the art of the possible, and our young people need this art now.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I thank Mr. Cunniffe. We all know about the frustrations we have. I am now going to hand over to Mr. John Mulligan, a long-time supporter of this campaign, and ask him to do a summary for the committee of where we might all go from here and then I will say a couple of final words.
Mr. John Mulligan:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to bring our views to the table today. My name is John Mulligan. I am a journalist, author and newspaper columnist in the region and like Brendan and others, I have been a long-time campaigner for sustainable infrastructure in rural Ireland.
Having an interest in outdoor tourism, particularly walking tourism, I started to campaign in 2010 for a network of long walking and cycling trails in Ireland, similar to what is enjoyed as a matter of course by people in other countries. At that time, Ireland had around 70 km of trails, while Germany had 70,000 km of linked trails. Clearly, we were never going to persuade German tourists, the biggest customers in Europe for this product, to visit Ireland and spend a week cycling up and down the Mayo greenway, as somebody said at the time, like hamsters on a wheel.
We had some successes. Fáilte Ireland, initially opposed to such trails, conceded the merit in our case following market sampling in the main European markets.
Mr. John Martin, then CEO of Waterways Ireland, initially rejected a proposal to utilise disused towpaths on river and canal waterways; however, following repeated lobbying by us, he saw the potential and became a real champion for such development. The Royal and Grand Canal Way trails gave Ireland an immediate bounce into the market, delivering 270 km of ready-made access, all in public ownership.
Deputy Alan Kelly, as Mr. Brendan Quinn mentioned, was an early supporter of the logic of utilising linear corridors in State ownership to help develop areas in need of investment. The current Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, on being appointed transport Minister, met with me and immediately saw the potential benefit. He initiated the Dublin-Galway greenway on the Royal Canal and also the closed Mullingar-Athlone railway, with the intention of progressing it further towards Galway. The final section of this project is not yet complete, but we hope and believe it will happen.
Mr. Quinn and I identified linear corridors of State-owned lands as an early win in advancing our mileage of trails, and we have seen how this strategy has worked in Waterford and Limerick, for instance. The Waterford Greenway, mostly utilising closed railway alignments, attracts more than 250,000 unique visitors annually, as well as providing a leisure and commuting route for thousands of local families. It brings jobs, too. A former derelict cottage on the old line, a mile or so east of Dungarvan, is now the well-regarded Railway Kitchen. When I last looked, it was employing 32 people.
We tried for many years to persuade councillors in the west of Ireland to copy the success of these projects. A study carried out in Sligo found the payback time on investment on a greenway based on a closed rail line between Collooney and Bellaghy could be as little as five years, yet we have debated this issue for more than a decade, with strong opposition from councillors who believe a train on this route is imminent. It is not. Every official report over the decade has found no case for a railway. The figures on the Ennis-Athenry line are dismal but lobbyists boost them by adding in commuter numbers on the Athenry-Oranmore-Galway route, which is part of the existing Dublin-Galway line and has nothing to do with the western rail corridor. However, the experts refute the feasibility of building a line north of Athenry at this time. Lobbyists have sought to build a freight line, with no stations, but the most recent NWRA report on rail freight into Mayo showed the existing lines to be lightly used and with no requirement for another line. The lack of ambition shown by councillors and indeed Deputies in Mayo in seeking to build an unwanted railway to ship raw materials out of Mayo is a third-world approach to infrastructure provision. Round sawlog, which is what we are talking about, should not be shipped out of the west until it is processed into sawn timber, fuel or modular houses. Seeking to build a railway to create wealth outside the west is a negative approach to local governance. In any case, exports of high value nowadays are increasingly transmitted, not exported. In this digital age, harking back to being a source of raw materials for an empire elsewhere is hardly forward thinking.
The fact remains that no railway has been built on this route, between Athenry and Collooney, in the past decade, and it is very likely that the situation will be the same a decade from now. Given the short payback period and the crying need for local investment in neglected towns, logic dictates we should be building this infrastructure now. Apart from creating wealth now, making the region attractive to remote and high-paid workers and providing safe places for families to exercise, a greenway will halt the creeping land grab that is happening along the route and that has happened with too many such assets elsewhere. If a decision is made to build a railway in ten or 20 years, the asset will have been preserved.
At a meeting of an Oireachtas transport policy committee here in this building in February 2021, Mr. Jim Meade, CEO of Irish Rail, described greenways on closed and disused lines as a “win-win” given that they preserve the routes in public ownership, while the primary use of the asset will always be rail. This debate must not be seen as a rail-versus-trail debate but, rather, a debate on the best use of State-owned assets at this point. Mr. Quinn has told members what Irish Rail told Mayo County Council about a greenway north of Claremorris and how it has deliberately stopped this from happening.
Some 27,000 people in the region are crying out for this infrastructure. They see the benefits enjoyed in places like Kilmacthomas in Waterford and wonder why their councils, with the honourable exception of an enlightened Sligo, will not draw down the available money and just do what is required. If funding is made available for rail, we will take that too, with a greenway relocated to the edge of the alignment as a minor percentage of the cost of the rail project. However, the council needs to listen, and that is why we need the committee’s help.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I thank Mr. Mulligan. I will be very quick in making my concluding comments. I thank the Chair and other members for listening. I thank my fellow petitioners, including those in the Gallery, for making the trip.
All we are asking for is that our message be taken to the Oireachtas, the Department, TII and all those involved in any decision-making on this. There is a wasted asset sitting idle. It has been sitting idle for the best part of 50 years. We know there are those who want to see the railway reopened but we cannot wait another 50 years for what might happen. Therefore, this is our message: if the railway is going to be reopened from Athenry to Claremorris, then get on with it, and at the same time put in a parallel greenway – a perfectly safe and feasible option. If the railway is to be put on the permanent long finger, with can-kicking, and will not happen for ten or 20 years, at best, let us have a greenway now until such time as a railway is possible from Athenry to Tuam and onwards to Milltown and Claremorris.
North of Claremorris, Mayo County Council needs to grasp the nettle, as Sligo County Council has done. The Department should make it clear to Mayo County Council that the route from Claremorris to Charlestown should be greenway, with accommodation made for a greenway parallel to the Velorail project for about 6 km at Kiltimagh.
Greenways on closed railways are not rocket science; they are a proven, winning formula. I was walking on them in Derbyshire when I was eight years old, which is more years ago than I care to remember. The Western Rail Trail will bring a tourism-related economic boom to the area from Collooney to Athenry and the region as a whole. Let us just get on with it. I thank members for listening. We would welcome any questions they have.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the speakers. What has come up is their side of the story. We will be following it up with the likes of representatives from Mayo County Council and other witnesses on the other side. Usually when a petition comes in from a particular region, we let Senators and Deputies from there have the first say. I call Senator Feighan first.
Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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The petitioners are very welcome. It was very interesting to note their commitment to and passion for an area in which I feel we have lacked in recent years. Every time I cycle in Germany or Holland, in the summer or winter, I always ask why we cannot have their facilities in Ireland. We can have them only if people like the witnesses, from various communities, get up and go with an idea and bring it to their local authorities and the Government. I believe funding is available. A lot of work has been done over the years, but, with the Green Party in government, I believe there is a much different approach. Local authorities have not been to the fore in grasping the serious tourism potential and even the local potential of greenways, cycleways or blueways. I see this myself. We are talking about the Western Rail Trail and Sligo Greenway but we want to extend the route farther to Athenry. It has my full support. The SLNCR greenway, which Councillor Casserly rightly raised, will bring us up to Enniskillen but we need to join them altogether. There are the Ballinamore Greenway, in my constituency; the Carrick-on-Shannon to Battlebridge Blueway, all the way to Drumshanbo; and the Shannon Blueway, which goes through Carrick-on-Shannon and extends down to Roosky; and also a blueway from Ballyshannon that crosses the Border. They are all beginning to link in but this can be done only through co-operation and by having people like the petitioners, who are prepared to roll up their sleeves. They have my full support.
I love railways. My late father, like many of his compatriots and others over generations, left Tubbercurry on the railway in the 1950s to go to London. I would love to see the railway and support railways, but on this occasion I believe the greenway is a no-brainer. It is the way forward. I live in Sligo town and look forward to getting on the greenway, stopping off in Collooney, where my aunt had a tea shop, and Coolaney, where my uncle had the Mountain Inn, a pub, and going on to Tubbercurry.
This is what will happen, and it is not just tourism anymore. When I was growing up we were told that we lived in a temperate climate. We can cycle or walk almost 365 days per year. With electric bikes and modern aids, which we will be using, I have no doubt that this will also be a means of travel, not just from the point of view of leisure. This is a safe way to get from Collooney into Sligo, and Carrick-on-Shannon into Ballinamore, once we link them up. I do not think people fully realise the potential we have. It has my full support.
I was involved in the greenway between Lough Key forest park and Boyle. I remember going to government to get funding in 2012 when there was no money in this country. I was disappointed in local authorities that, on a few occasions, spent the money on footpaths when it was specially for greenways. That greenway between Boyle and Lough Key forest part is now built. During Covid, like many other greenways, it was fully utilised. However, we need to link Boyle to Sligo, Sligo to Mayo and Galway, and further across the Border. There are a lot of others.
We can see what is happening on the ground. People like the witnesses are prepared to stand up. They have a vision. I thank Sligo County Council and Councillors Cassidy, Mulvey and others in that area who were involved in drawing up the proposal and have stood up to be counted. They have my full support. Greenways are the way forward for the country, tourism and sustainable travel for people who can walk and cycle. You would not go on any road now on a bike or walking with a bike. This is the way forward. We see all the work. We want to join up the greenways.
I applaud the witnesses' tenacity. I see Mr. Mulligan, who has shown serious tenacity. He has put forward his ideas, and with Mr. Quinn and many more, he has brought a lot of politicians on board. I applaud that; well done to him. I look forward to the next submission from the railways. I genuinely think that both greenways and rail traffic can co-exist and work together.
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their submission and the detailed account. We all recognise that rail lines around the country have been used, in many cases, in a positive way for greenways. Indeed, placing them along canals and other level pathways is the secret to it. That is what rail lines offer. I disagree that the rail line will never happen. I believe a railway can and will happen. I believe the political will is there to do it. It can be done. I believe, when it is built, that people will use it. That has been the experience everywhere when new rail lines have been opened. I accept we have to understand that the past was a bad place with regard to leaving assets like the rail line lying idle. It was unfortunate that happened. It happened all over the place. Many of the old rail lines were left idle and people built sheds and all sorts of things on them. Now they cannot be used again. That is a tragedy of the past that we certainly do not want to repeat. I do not think we will repeat that here.
I support the idea of a greenway. However, I do not support the idea of a greenway where it is going to block the prospect of a railway. The railway line is there to be used as a rail line. That is what we need to focus on. I certainly support putting the greenway alongside the rail line, as was pointed out in some of the slides. That is certainly an option we should look at and use. I fully understand the commitment and passion the witnesses have for what they are trying to do. However, I also understand there is similar passion and a public need to restore our railways and get them up and running again. That is not harking back to some nostalgic past. It is looking to the future. Everyone we talk to, when we talk about climate change and so on, talks about alternative means of transport. They talk about public transport, and rail will be key to that - in particular light and electric rail. We have a space here to do both. That is what we need to do and to see happen. In that context I have no issue with the proposal to have a greenway. However, I have an issue if people believe that the proposal for the greenway is in the context of the railway not proceeding. I think the railway will happen quite quickly. That is what I want to see happen. I want to see both a greenway and a railway, and I think the majority of us share the ambition to see both. It should not be either-or. The witnesses have said that in their submission. Putting the greenway on top of the existing rail line would, for many people, prevent the railway from happening. We do not want that. It would be useful if the witnesses were to clarify that they are supportive of seeing the western rail corridor open up as a prospect.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank each of the witnesses for appearing today. I thank them for their patience, perseverance, vision and ambition with regard to development of the region they represent. I stress that all of these people are here on a voluntary basis. They have paid their own way to get to Dublin, and have been working for a long time to deliver what they see is an absolutely logical use of a badly misused piece of national transport infrastructure. I have huge respect for Deputy Kenny. I think he is a superb representative of his region. I want to clarify at the beginning of my contribution that none of these people, nor indeed myself, are setting out to block a rail line in any context. From the beginning of this campaign we have been absolutely clear that we want to see both happen. We are of the west of Ireland. We want to promote the development of the west and the quality of life people can have living and working in the west. A rail service would add to that. Our deepest concern, and it is not one that will go away any time soon, is that in ten years' time we will be sitting in this room making the exact same case. I will be in the town of Athenry, where I was educated. There is a particular street in Athenry where you walk over a bridge that looks down at a rotting rail line. That would be a horrific outcome for the people of Athenry, east Galway and the west. That is my first point.
Nobody here is setting out, in any shape or form, to block a rail line. We are making the case that any objective analysis carried out in the past ten to 15 years by people who are expert in transport economics - Ernst & Young and JASPERS-European Investment Bank - has drawn the conclusion that right now it does not make economic sense to develop this section of rail from Athenry to Claremorris and on to Collooney. They have never said it will not make sense in the future. They have been clear on that, but right now there is no economic case to be made for the development of a rail service. All we are saying is, in the interim, can we please have the vision and ambition to bring this lifeline back to life, to inject energy, vitality and quality of life into towns and villages that are bereft of it the whole way along that corridor?
We are also deeply confused about the messaging emanating from the Department of Transport. I ask that the Cathaoirleach and the secretariat, at the end of our contribution today, seek to have officials from the Department, Transport Infrastructure Ireland and Irish Rail, appear before this committee so we can end the confusion to the greatest possible extent. The Department has commissioned and spent a lot of money on an all-Ireland rail review, which has drawn certain conclusions about one section of the line from Athenry to Claremorris. That same Department has been funding Galway County Council, already to the tune of €375,000, to develop feasibility studies, planning and design for a greenway along that same line. To be frank, as a representative of east Galway, I am not certain what the Department's intention is. It has been that confusion and lack of clarity in the Department's approach that give me cause for concern.
We also live in a democracy. I recall, and Mr. Cunniffe mentioned, the public outcry on a Sunday afternoon in 2018, assembling in the car park of Tuam Cathedral.
Those of us organising it arrived earlier in the day. We thought if 500 people turned up, that would be fantastic. If 1,000 people turned up, that would be absolutely wonderful. That would be the people speaking with great strength and unity. Some 3,000 people turned up. It was unprecedented. Of any other political cause that has emanated in east Galway during the last ten, 15 or 20 years, nothing had engendered that kind of support. That day, 3,000 people marched through Tuam. School children made banners calling for the development of a greenway. Community groups, not alone from Tuam but across the whole of east Galway, sports clubs, and those who prioritise the health and well-being of people in that region, were on the streets of Tuam that day saying that this makes absolute sense and should happen right now. Think of that, 27,000 people along that whole corridor said that this is what they want to happen for their children and for their future.
It galls me to think that we are somehow dismissing all of that and dismissing the ambition of a region. We have polarised. The Chair is right that two camps have emerged and I cannot see the logic of allowing that to happen where one camp says, "We are going to have a train or nothing", and in some people's eyes, another camp says, "We are going to have a greenway or nothing", which is inaccurate. The greenway campaign has always said, "Let's have both." This is my deepest fear and why I want to see the Department's officials in here. I want a timeline for the western rail corridor to reopen. If it is going to happen, when it will happen? I want to know why the Department has invested nearly €400,000 in a feasibility study for a greenway that is now lying in abeyance. I want a budget for the reopening of the western rail corridor.
Irish Rail itself published its national rail freight strategy last year to take us from now to 2040. Read it. There is not one single line about the western rail corridor. There is the development of a rail freight hub at Athenry station to take in freight by road on the M17, M18 and M6 into Athenry, then, if needs be, to put it on the rail freight service to wherever it needs to go.
Right now there is a rail freight service from Mayo through Athlone to all of our ports. There is one train per day. That is the number of freight trains that leave Mayo every day. It is ten, 15 or 20 but one. Let us be realistic here about using this line right now, and not in ten or 15 years' time, to bring the greatest benefit to the region. It would be deeply irresponsible of us as politicians. What it needs to be about is the art of the possible and not about leaving that line rotting, with weeds growing on it for the next ten years. I do not want to be sitting here in ten years' time and telling these people, "We did our best but what could we do other than hold up our hands in frustration." We cannot allow that to happen. We need to get those officials in here as soon as possible - we are really grateful to have this opportunity - to determine what exactly their plans are and to ask them to give us a timeline, a budget, something to cling on to and a bit of hope.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Apologies. I should have made it clearer when I spoke about bringing Mayo in, that the intention is to bring in the Department and Irish Rail.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We will get the three in. We will try to move that as quickly as we can and get them to the committee as soon as we can. Does Senator Murphy want to come in before the witnesses respond?
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh Shaun, Seán, Bernice, Marie agus Breandán anseo inniu. One thing that was very important for me to hear today was to hear every one of the witnesses say they are not against a railway being developed, if that is going to happen. That was very important and it was made clear. To prove it to everybody, in his summing up Mr. Mulligan stated that: "... if the railway is going to be reopened from Athenry to Claremorris, then get on with it, and at the same time put in a parallel greenway, [it is a] a perfectly safe and feasible option." I agree with this by the way. Then he stated that: "If the railway is going on the permanent long finger ... and will not happen for ten or 20 years, at best, [then] let us have a greenway now until such a time as the railway is possible..." That is totally in order. The other thing that was really important to me was the honest way every one of the witnesses presented their case today. That is important for members of this committee. I totally agree with the Cathaoirleach that we must bring to officials from Mayo County Council in. I will not say too much more today except to say the witnesses should be listened to and the points they made should be taken into account.
I will go back very briefly to what Mr. Quinn said. He stated that Mayo County Council disagreed with its CEO, if I am reading it correctly. Something was put into the county development plan which virtually blocked dealing with the submissions and blocked that proposed development going ahead under the present county development plan. Am I correct in saying that? That is obviously why the witnesses are here today. I want to add to that because, I think Ms Brennan said that part of that railway line in Kiltimagh has been developed for another purpose.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I put the following question: if the county development plan adopted what the councillors did and development has taken place somewhere along that line, is it not in contravention of the county development plan?
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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I am only saying-----
Ms Bernice Brennan:
It is like Mayo County Council saying it is accepting that there will not be a train any time soon because it has a 12-year lease on the section of the line. The Velorail only opened last summer. The official opening was last June. There were delays with it due to planning, with Covid and everything else. The 12 years expires in 2027.
Ms Bernice Brennan:
It is being used as a tourist attraction but local people do not use it much and it is only seasonal. It is not open all year round. It is only open during the summer. That is for leisure, tourism, whatever. I said that while it is an interesting idea it is not something that locals use much and it is not something that can be used all year round. People have to pay for it so people like me who have children, or even people coming on holidays are looking for something that is free to do with their children. They might try it out once but people are not going to use it every weekend. The Velorail is there now but has blocked-----
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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It is contradictory.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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It is contradictory. That is my point.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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It is a contradiction of what it is talking about. I definitely agree that a statement from the Department or the Minister on this would clarify an awful lot.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We will bring them in.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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The witnesses have my support for what they are trying to do and I am delighted to be here to listen to them.
Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Did all the councillors vote?
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We need to be careful because-----
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Just to be aware, Mayo County Council told this committee before that the elected members expressed the view that the potential of the western rail corridor needs to be protected and that any greenway route is to be accompanied on the ground other than the railway line and any progress on the Athenry-Claremorris line could lead to an increase. What the committee is being told and what the witnesses tell us is conflicting. We need to be careful about what accusations we make against county councillors.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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This committee has always asked people to leave politics at the door.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Community organisations come in here and we feel that if we start to bring politics around the table we will get nowhere.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I thank Senator Murphy. I know we are not to bring politics into it.
We have deep frustrations with Mayo County Council on this issue. I will not go into the politics of it. It started back in 2013 when 400 submissions were made to the council. We argued with it a lot about it and it was not even mentioned in the county plan. In the meantime - I did not mention this in my spiel - we got 800 submissions for the north-west regional authority plan. It was written into the north-west regional authority plan that the authors agreed with the idea. It is not for want of telling them. Thousands of submissions have been made, but the key thing was the fact that Irish Rail and the Department of Transport were clear about this. Deputy Cannon said there has been ambivalence about what direction they are going on the Claremorris to Athenry route. They were clear, and I said it in the speech, they name the route and state that nothing will happen north of Claremorris. Deputy Kenny can say what he likes about having the railway the whole way to Collooney, but it will be in his dreams or when he is pushing up the daisies. I really believe that.
In any event, there are so many nitty-gritty bits of detail. Between Claremorris and Collooney, there are 365 railway crossings. The road twists and turns like a spaghetti baked and thrown on the floor. It is not feasible for a modern railway to be brought on that route. I have heard arguments for keeping the closed railway in situ. The railway does not exist. It is scrap metal. It would need to be pulled up. There was an old railway on the new railway line from Limerick to Ennis, which was pulled up and put to one side and a new railway was put down, so that argument is totally false. It was used for the Velorail. The point the Senator made is absolutely true. I was astounded by Mayo County Council. It was at the final stages of submitting the county plan that the county manager - I have a document here - in his final recommendations to the members said to take out the clause that the western rail corridor, WRC, is protected and preserved for the delivery of rail infrastructure to develop the region and the corridor is completely removed from any feasibility study for the WRC. He asked for it to be taken out. Irish Rail made a second submission asking for it to be taken out. Guess what happened. It was left in. It was built into the county plan another eight years of doing sweet Fanny Adams.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Does Deputy Kenny want to respond before I bring someone else in?
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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People have a view of that. That is fine. I am sure people talked to Monsignor Horan when he started to build the airport and told him he would never succeed. You can laugh if you like, but at the end of the day we have to have ambition to improve our country and improving our rail network across the entire island is part of that. This may well be part of it. I am not saying it will be, but it may well be. Certainly, I have an ambition to see that happen and to see greenways happen as well. It is both. This is where the division comes in. When Mr. Quinn says it will never happen, it gives people the impression that he wants it to never happen. He needs to be careful about that if he wants to progress an argument which will validate his point of view.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
That is fair enough. The original report that looked at the western rail corridor did not look at the area north of Claremorris. The new strategy document, the all-island rail review, has not looked north of Claremorris. If we could at least get someone to say we could have a greenway, like Sligo County Council is aiming for, because it is getting - if I gave the wrong impression, I apologise - deeply frustrating north of Claremorris. If a Velorail is allowed on the route, why is a greenway not allowed on the route? They are both being used for leisure purposes. Can the Deputy explain that?
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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To be fair the Deputies present cannot answer that. We will invite Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, to appear before the committee. It did a report on the railway. I call Ms Casserly and then Mr. Cunniffe.
Ms Marie Casserly:
Just to clarify when the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, was in Sligo just before Christmas, he visited Sligo County Council and I chaired the meeting. The issue came up and I asked him about the Sligo greenway and the continuation of the line. He categorically stated, and it is on record, that for the foreseeable future there are no plans to develop a railway line north of Claremorris to Sligo. The Minister said that on the record.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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It was also said in Dáil Éireann.
Ms Marie Casserly:
I do not know what else is needed. He is the Minister for Transport. As Deputy Cannon said, all the reports have stated this. People were contracted to question people and make submissions and all these reports are valid. How much more validation and how many more reports do we need before politicians start to take this seriously? I am almost embarrassed as a politician. We have mums and dads. I have been contacted by people in Mayo asking why. They do not understand and do not want to know anything about this report and that report. All they want is something for their children. They want to keep their children here and want to have an option for their children to return. That is all they are asking for. They hear politicians answering and lose complete faith in the whole lot of us when this kind of argument is going on. As Mr. Quinn said, I will not be back here in ten or 20 years listening to this. None of us will be. It will be someone else.
As Deputy Cannon said, we will be holding up our hands saying we could not do anything about it. There has to be a will. As politicians, we have to listen. We are the servants of the people who elect us. It is not the other way around. The people are asking for this. The 27,000 who signed the petition were mentioned. There is another 50,000 or 60,000 who want this. It is not quantifiable. Why are they not allowed to have their say? Why are they not allowed to have this small piece of infrastructure that will change an entire region, not a little town? They are the towns that have been decimated over decades. Deputy Kenny says it is coming. If there is a report in the next five years to say there will be a train on that line, people will be happy with that. The chair of Sligo greenway is in his late 50s now and he said he was a child when the last train left Tubbercurry. Will our grandchildren be sitting wondering what is happening? We have a duty to look after the next generation.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We understand your frustration, but as a politician, Ms Casserly will be aware that putting her case without the other side will not get answers today.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We have not heard them. We have suggested that we invite Mayo County Council, the Department of Transport, TII and Irish Rail to appear before the committee. We know, and as a politician Ms Casserly knows, that things move slowly. We all want to bring up a problem today and have it resolved tomorrow morning, but it does not happen. I ask the public in the area to give us a chance to go through the process in the proper way. We will move it on as quickly as we can in this committee. That is all we can promise the witnesses and the people they represent.
Mr. Shaun Cunniffe:
I am so encouraged by all the questions and positivity. Deputy Kenny is right. It is hugely important - it is as solid as the tracks themselves - that if we must not show any inclination that we are just greenway people. We are all for the railway. We are all west of Ireland people, but we have been working on this since 2012. There are rock solid reports that state it. It is open countryside. There are small villages and no population. There is motorway running alongside it, which is the best form of road possible. There are unbelievable private bus services. The information is available, but it is a good tip that we have to get the vocabulary right when we are presenting our case so we do not alienate people.
It is the default position that people say, "I would love a railway. It would be great to go on a railway." It is a big job to explain that there will be a greenway, say, in the interim, but not in any way threatening a railway. That is our position always - the complementary use of the alignment.
I am from Tuam. I have been the secretary of a ladies' football club for the past seven years. Every year when we are doing the fixtures, I can see this club is not in the division this year. It does not have the numbers. Other clubs have amalgamated and others are not there at all. Every year, clubs are going. They are amalgamating. The list is long, and it is real. The post offices are gone. The ATMs are gone. The Garda stations are gone. It is a plea from us here. We are trying to put stuff back into our areas for our children. All my nieces and nephews are gone. Emigration is real and big in the west of Ireland. We have got to do something now.
I am so happy that the members are all here and that they are so engaged with and so respectful of the process. I see a process in front us that I am very happy with. I just want to tell the members it is so heartfelt. My nephew has gone to Canada. In a restaurant, it is so hard to do business in Ireland. He is gone.
A greenway delivers one thing into an area - footfall, the golden ingredient that one cannot buy. They want to come in their thousands, and we are asking, "Will we accept you?" For our children, we have got to go with it. We have to make it happen and I really believe we can.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Before I bring Ms Brennan in, Deputy Harkin wants to come in.
Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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I will be brief. I thank the Chair for letting me in. Apologies for arriving late.
I cannot better what has been said. The guests have stated it clearly. The presentations have been reasonable. It is not a question of either-or. It is about what we can do now that will make a difference and that does not preclude what could happen in the future. That is a reasonable way of doing it because, in truth, we do not know who the Minister for Transport will be in the future and we do not know what decisions will be taken. What we are discussing here today does not stop anything from happening in the future. In fact, and our guests can correct me if I am wrong on this, it might help. If the greenway was preserved or whatever, it might be in a better place if it was to be upgraded.
I hear what the Chair says. Nothing can be done tomorrow, but this is a long time in gestation. I have had debates and discussions with some of the people here and I changed my mind when I could see the reality of what they were saying. Mr. Cunniffe spoke of footfall. I am only thinking really of Sligo, but Mayo is the same, and the importance of that greenway and the difference it would make to so many small towns along the route.
When one is looking at the various magazines talking about what to see and visit in Ireland, one of the top attractions is always the Waterford greenway. I know why. I wish that we could have the same in the north west. Whatever camps people are in, we should be practical and think of people now and in the next ten-to-15 years. We will not do anything to stop further decisions or ambition, as Deputy Martin Kenny said, but we need to work now.
Ms Bernice Brennan:
I would make one quick point. Deputy Martin Kenny mentioned Knock airport - one of the best things that ever happened. Where I live, it is a 15 or 20 minutes' drive to Knock airport. I live in a town in which, as Mr. Cunniffe said, the two banks are gone in the past few years. The town is going down and this asset is there. People go over to Westport. They bring their bikes on the backs of their cars and they say that this is fantastic. They ask why they cannot have that in east Mayo. That is west Mayo. They just want a bite of the cherry. We want what everyone else has.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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I call Deputy Buckley. Senator Lombard will follow.
Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair and our guests for coming in today. I love sitting back and listening to all the arguments here. I have to say their case is a no-brainer. We have had the same. I am from east Cork. From Midleton to Cork city, it took us 15 years of lobbying to even get the train back there. It is one of the busiest lines now. From Midleton to Youghal, the greenway is almost ready to open.
I agree with all the speakers, including Deputy Martin Kenny. The language at the time was, of course, everybody wanted the railway back but I am a realist. When Ms Brennan stated, "The closed railway line running north of Claremorris to Charlestown and on to Sligo is simply not going to reopen anytime soon." I noted she is a realist. Ms Brennan is correct, and I agree with it. We had 600 people in Youghal at a meeting one night, and I laid out the reality to them. I told them it that it took us so many years to get the railway line back into Midleton. It took over €20 million in development charges to get that railway line back in. I stated that with the lack of industry in Youghal at the time, nothing would pay for it to go back in but the possibility of the greenway will boost tourism. They had the Ironman for four or five years at the time. With the footfall that comes with that, we have already had four shops and two restaurants opened, and the greenway has not even opened yet. I stated that it is on a lease and the possibility of putting the line down is possible. The possibility is mentioned. Funnily enough, I wrote to TII and the NTA probably six times in the past three years to get a park-and-ride in regard to Youghal and train station in Midleton for connectivity in the meantime. The response was they were not doing it. I replied stating that they were not opening the railway. Then the strategy report comes out in which the park-and-ride is mentioned four times and the railway link from Youghal to Waterford is mentioned six times, but that is a long way away. I told those at the meeting to be realists and make use of what they had.
I am well used to the one in Waterford that was mentioned here. It is absolutely flying, and there are the other benefits of it. People will argue the point that it is a waste of money. It is cost neutral to put the line back down.
As the Chair said, the guests make an amazing case here. One cannot argue with it. They presented the facts, but there is a line in our job where sometimes we have to listen to two sides of the story and somewhere in the middle is the truth. I would be siding with the Chair and agreeing that we should bring in the local authorities, Irish Rail, TII and the whole lot.
I ask the guests to be patient. I am here seven years and we have other petitions to go through after this today. In the seven years, it is the first time I have ever seen somebody get a result out of any committee, but for it to write back and thank them for it.
We do not play party politics here because this is the "lastchance.com" for any citizen. We are all citizens of the State. We might be elected representatives but we are still citizens of the State. I know where they are coming from, with the children and the positive mental health and the benefit of it.
We have the best country in the world. We have the best people in the world. Covid has shown us what kind of scenery we have in our own country because people did not even realise what was at their own backdoor.
As I said, we will work collectively here to get the answers. Let us get the facts and the answers, and say what they need. I suppose we will concentrate on Mayo. I am not picking on any local authority but Mayo seemed to be the stumbling block here. We will ask why it put that into the development plan and why that cannot be amended. I have worked on county development plans and they can be amended. Let us have it out. Let us bring it in here as well. Hopefully, in a short period of time, we will go away with an answer that we are all happy with and where at least one can say that is the final stop and we know where we are going or where we are not going. It is, as they said, a case of making the best of what one has now in the short term, and plan for the long term later on.
Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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They make a compelling case. Trying to work out how one gets movement on this issue is probably the big issue. It is all to do with an objective within the county development plan of Mayo, objective MT09. That is to be changed.
I am a little concerned about a few issues. This is a new county development plan that has been passed and it has a certain lifespan. Did the Planning Regulator ever intervene regarding the county development plan? Did the Planning Regulator ever make any commentary regarding this issue?
When it comes to the county development plan to be approved by the Department and the Minister, which county development plans are sent to the Minister and then could come back with a comment to the effect that a certain paragraph is inappropriate? Did the Minister of the day ever inform Mayo County Council of any issues regarding the county development plan and, if so, what were the issues?
The third issue, which I think Deputy Buckley touched on, is that to get a contravention of the county development plan one needs the full support of the management of the local authority before it goes to the members, who then vote on it. The management of the local authority was originally in favour of changing the development plan. Has it indicated at any level that it is willing to move forward with a contravention of the county development plan?
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I do not know the answer to that question. All I can tell the Senator is that at the time the county development plan was being discussed, when it came to the final draft of the county development plan and when the chief executive of Mayo County Council went back to the chamber and said, "These are the changes we should make", one of which was to exclude the controversial MTO 9, it refused to change it. Also, in the final phase of submissions, when the plan has been approved and then goes back to the final phase of submissions, the Department put in a submission asking that that clause be taken out, effectively, and it made a point of not taking it out.
Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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What about the Planning Regulator?
Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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What about the Department?
Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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The Department has the power, at the end of the day, to approve or-----
Tim Lombard (Fine Gael)
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Have the witnesses had any negotiations yet with the county manager or the executive of the local authority regarding a potential change to the county development plan, which can be proposed only by them?
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Do any Members wish to come back in? I call Deputy Cannon.
Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses again for, as Deputy Buckley said, an incredibly compelling presentation. Anybody who thinks logically and rationally can only agree with the case being made by these people.
I will make one final point. Every country is obliged to plan for its future based on the resources it has to deliver on that future. I live in a tiny east-coast Galway village. Two hundred people live there. I would love a train station outside my door; I know that will never happen. There are many similar towns and villages across this country that will never have that resource made available to them. Every country has to prioritise its infrastructural development based on need and resources, and in Ireland we do that through our national development plan. Right now, because of the massive inflation in construction costs, our current national development plan has a €9 billion hole in it. We cannot even deliver what we are setting out to deliver by 2040, and there will have to be a revision and a re-examination of that.
In that context, there will be a section allocated to transport. The pressures now in terms of national transport infrastructure development lie primarily where the most people live. That is how a country is managed. Right now, there are more people commuting to Galway city every day from just the towns of Oranmore and Athenry combined than there are from the whole of County Mayo. That is where the investment in rail is needed right now in the west of Ireland. It is in double-tracking the Dublin-Galway line, particularly from Ballinasloe all the way into Galway city centre, and in significantly developing park-and-ride facilities in Ballinasloe, Woodlawn, Attymon, Athenry and Oranmore, all the way into the city again. That is where we need to make huge additional rail investment in the next ten, 15 or 20 years.
In establishing what those priorities are, we have to be realistic and pragmatic and we have to plan in the best possible manner. I have read extensively every single report that has been done by people who are far more expert than any of us in this room - transport economists who report in a purely objective and rational manner - and their conclusion over and over again is that we will not see rail services reinstated on that line for the next 20 to 30 years. That is the reality, so, as Deputy Harkin says, let us act now. Let us act for the benefit of these communities right now. We could have a greenway live from Athenry all the way to Collooney in five years' time done and dusted and then when the rail comes - this is being done all over the world - pick it up, move the greenway to one side and put in the rail line. By the way, as regards the case Mr. Quinn makes, there are 365 level crossings between Claremorris and Collooney. It is highly likely that if we are ever to develop a rail service north of Claremorris, it will not even be on that line but will be on a completely different line that will be the subject of a CPO, like we do with most other national transport infrastructure.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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We totally understand your frustration, lads, but for this committee to do its job properly, we need to tease out where the sticking points are with Mayo County Council, Irish Rail and the Department. The Department, as Deputy Cannon said earlier, has serious questions to answer in that it is on one hand supplying money for this and, on the other, putting stumbling blocks in the way. The assurance we will give all of you is that we will follow this up as quickly as we possibly can and get Department representatives sitting on the same seats you are sitting on today in order that members can come back in and quiz them on your behalf as to why these stumbling blocks are there.
Do you want to make one quick final statement before you leave?
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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You are not as bad as some in here, Mr. Quinn. Do not worry about that.
Mr. Brendan Quinn:
I do not want to stop a railway line north of Claremorris, but we are pretty sure that north of Claremorris is done and dusted. No one is even considering it. The Claremorris-Athenry thing popped back up on the agenda when it was popped into the all-island rail review. As I said, if people do not want to do this, they should get on with it and put the railway in with the greenway alongside it. That would be a win-win. As regards that win-win, I ask the committee to recall the slide I put up with one verbatim quote from Jim Meade. He said Irish Rail would allow a greenway only on a very strict licensed arrangement. They have nothing to be frightened of. We are not trying to steal their railway. They should put a greenway down there. The bandwidth of the entire route is about 30 m. There are some pinch points that engineering can solve. It would do so much for these communities.
That is all I will say. I thank the committee for having us.
Mr. Shaun Cunniffe:
I will make one final comment, a Chathaoirligh, on this idea of a transportation system for rural Ireland versus a train system. Small buses picking up people and moving around rural Ireland are what we need. We know that heavy rail and track through small towns and villages would be overkill, but the demographics, the people, are not there to use it. The Department of Transport should therefore be focusing on bus services to look after rural Ireland and invest in that.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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I suggest that, through your supporters, like Ciarán, if you had questions, when the Department representatives are sitting there, Ciarán, Marian and others can put them to them in order that we can try to get answers.
I am not bringing you back in-----
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, but I am going up through the table.
Ms Marie Casserly:
I will be brief. A couple of years ago my children and I went to Waterford to cycle the greenway. I had to go to the third bike hire shop early in the morning because the other two bike hire shops had no bikes left. I met more people from Sligo cycling the greenway in Waterford than anyone else. They were in the shops, the hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation. Can Members imagine if we had people from Waterford and from all over the country coming to Sligo to cycle the Sligo greenway, all the way, eventually, from Enniskillen to Claremorris?
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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I have no doubt, with the meeting being public, that there are people from Mayo County Council and so on listening in to the presentation. As has been said, you put a very good presentation in front of the committee, and that is all we can ask. We will follow it up as much as we can for you. Ms Brennan, do you wish to comment?
Mr. John Mulligan:
Unfortunately, Deputy Martin Kenny had to leave, but I want to bust a myth about the idea of rail versus trail. From the beginning of dealing with this, we have never said we are against a railway - never. We always qualify what we say by saying we are not opposed to a railway, but let us see a plan for a railway before we say we are in favour of it.
What Deputy Kenny mentioned about a greenway going on the railway is wrong, with respect to him. There is no railway on this. What is there, and Irish Rail has told us, is scrap metal, timber and stone. It has to come up anyway. Nobody is putting a greenway on anyone's railway. The councils, not us, are putting a greenway on some unused land, under a very strict licence, and again we clarified this back in 2011 with Irish Rail. The licence states at the outset that the primary use of the asset is for rail. That is written into it.
I have great respect for Deputy Kenny, who is a man of principles. He said that we should be qualifying what we say. I would say that the people who are pro-rail should be saying that they are not against a greenway. It is two-way street.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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To be fair to Deputy Kenny, I think that is the message he was trying to get out. Both sides of the argument need to be qualifying. It is not one against the other.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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If we start pitting one side against the other, we will be back here in five to ten years' time again because people will dig in their heels and back into a corner.
Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. I want to thank Mr. Quinn, Ms Casserly, Ms Brennan, Mr. Cunniffe and Mr. Mulligan for making presentations today. It was very beneficial. Like we have said, we will get in the other witnesses as quickly as we possibly can in order that we can let them put their case, as the witnesses have, and we can make a recommendation or we can put something to the Minister at that stage. That is the only promise we will make to the witnesses.