20 rail carriages bought for €44m lying in storage

More than 20 Irish Rail train carriages bought from a Japanese company for €44m are sitting in storage and are unlikely to be used for years to come, it has emerged.

TDs deemed the situation a complete waste of taxpayers’ money yesterday after it emerged the mini-fleet of carriages were sitting idle because of a lack of passenger numbers.

But members of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee insisted that the Government would not have had to bail out cash-strapped Irish Rail last year if the trains had been sold.