Approximately €225 million from the state treasury, which had been allocated to the original Metro North and Metro West projects as well as the underground Dart Interconnector tunnel, has been dismissed as a loss, according to a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The report disclosed that €166 million had been expended on the Metro North project until 2011, at which point its progression was halted by the presiding government.
The current version of the Dublin underground railway, now referred to as MetroLink, only potentially benefits from approximately €6 million of the previously acquired properties related to the project. Thus, the remaining €160 million was classified as ‘sunk costs’. An investment of €18.7 million in Metro West, along with €46 million spent on the original Dart Interconnector project (from a total expenditure of €48.6 million) has been written off. The overall loss equates to around €225 million in funding from the state treasury across these three interrelated projects.
The report by the CAG also indicated that the current MetroLink proposal shows “alignment with the Government’s official public spending code for capital projects”. However, the proposal to revive the freight railway line to the port of Foynes was pinpointed as having a heightened level of non-adherence with the code.
The planned Foynes project, currently costed around €152 million, needs to be completed over two project stages before any benefits from the investment are reaped. The report revealed that several key provisions of the public spending code were not adhered to in regard to the project. In December 2022, €64 million in approved funds were allocated to Iarnród Éireann prior to undertaking an in-depth evaluation of the project. At that moment, the code required Government approval to carry on with any project costing more than €100 million, however, this approval was not sought.
In November 2023, the supporting entity Iarnród Éireann finalised a business case for the Foynes scheme. Following this, in July 2024, the NTA or the National Transport Authority officially sanctioned the beginning of the project’s second and concluding phase, with a budget of €47 million.
At that point, progress had already been made on the phase one works, which cost €105 million. Not proceeding with phase two carried the considerable danger that the work from phase one would have been virtually worthless.