It’s projected that the State will have spent about €450 million on metro developments before major construction of the latest Metrolink line initiates. Brian Stanley, chairperson of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Sinn Féin TD, likened the cost to “astronomical stuff”. Last year, a PAC document outlined that approximately €150 million was squandered on now deserted schemes, notably the old Metro North and Metro West undertakings.
Thursday’s PAC discussion revealed that roughly €300 million is likely to have faced expenditure on the design, strategising, and purchasing phase for the present Metrolink project that connects Swords to Dublin city centre via the airport, ahead of the construction phase.
While defending the outflow, transport representatives upheld that Metrolink is distinct from Metro North. The holistic expense for Metrolink is conjectured to be around €9.5 billion. The procedure remains in planning, and if it gets approved, it’s anticipated that construction would end sometime between 2031 and 2034.
According to Hugh Creegan, National Transport Authority (NTA) deputy chief officer, until the conclusion of December 2023, about €158 million has been invested on Metrolink. No considerable physical activity has commenced, however, a few “enabling works” have taken place and the majority of the spends were incurred towards design, investigation, and planning.
Creegan disclosed that the successive stage of the activity is quite “intense” and pertains to procurement, which he hinted might cost between €100 million and €200 million. On Mr Stanley’s enquiry regarding pre-construction expenses amounting to €300 million in total, Creegan responded that that’s approximately the kind of sum they are discussing.
Later in the discussion, Stanley implied that €450 million would have been expended on the metro projects, without making any significant purchases such as carriages, rail lines or dispatching any excavation equipment, a total he echoed was “astronomical stuff”.
Senior Department of Transport officer Garret Doocey commented that the expense of propelling multibillion euro schemes like Metrolink through planning and pre-planning stages is substantial, and added that the Department and NTA’s obligation is to certify we’re attaining value for such expenditure. He emphasised Metro North was a distinct project, carried out under fitting regulations before it was discontinued.
Mr Stanley explained his understanding of it as an independent endeavour, but made it clear that the ultimate objective of establishing connectivity between Dublin’s city centre, north Dublin and the airport remained the same. Mr Creegan acknowledged that the expenditure involved in the new Metrolink project was significant, noting it as a necessity to facilitate the process from the design stage through to construction, maintaining that now was the appropriate stage for substantial investment to ensure all designs were finalised correctly and future complications minimised. Mr Stanley regarded the project as “quite costly” considering the enormous funds previously invested without tangible results, highlighting that a whopping €150 million had already been “frittered away”. Mr Doocey refuted Stanley’s claim, reminding that a railway order had been secured for the previous project, Metro North, but unfortunately it had been the decision of the then-Government to abandon that project. Stanley insisted it was a matter of “policymaking” and was a topic that should be discussed “in another setting”.