Rail review calls for €8.5bn investment

The Government has published its strategic rail review, a document outlining plans for the development of Irish railway over the coming 20 years.

The review calls for investment of €8.5bn in the rail network over the next two decades, saying this should deliver an improved and more cost-effective service which would attract more passengers.

It also said better management of current resources could deliver an improved services without the need for extra investment.

The review said investment in freight services should be concentrated on those services which currently make a profit, a move that it likely to anger people campaigning for an upgrading of the route between Limerick and the Co Wexford port of Rosslare.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan said the cost of implementing the recommendations would need careful consideration by the Exchequer.

Fine Gael transport spokesman Denis Naughten described the report as "flawed" and legitimises line closures.

"The report, which also endorses the closures of lightly used rail lines and paves the way for the closure of Limerick-Ballybrophy line and the Limerick Junction Waterford lines, is fatally flawed because it uses only financial criteria when considering line development," he said.

"It fails to recognise Government policy or the economic and social impact of rail development," he added.

Sinn Fein’s transport spokesman Sean Crowe said the rail review lacked vision and offered little in the way of radical reform.

“For a review that promised radical change as part of the most extensive review of our rail service ever taken, I feel we have been short-changed,” he said.

“It lacks vision, ambition and any coherent sense of the need to expand our rail services.

“There is no commitment to balanced regional development.

“There is little comfort for people living in the west of Ireland who were promised a Western Rail Corridor.”