POLITICAL REACTION: The Strategic Rail Review (SSR) is "fatally flawed" because it "legitimises line closures and pays nothing more than lip-service to the Government's own spatial strategy", according to the Fine Gael transport spokesman, Mr Denis Naughten TD.
While the commuter developments for Dublin and Cork and the upgrading of inter-city routes should be "fast-tracked as a priority", he said the review paved the way for the closure of the Limerick-Ballybrophy and Limerick Junction-Waterford lines.
The western rail corridor, severed at Athenry last autumn, had also been sidelined even though, Mr Naughten said, it had huge potential to help realise the National Spatial Strategy and its upgrading could be funded by public-private partnerships.
Referring to Dublin, he said it was "ludicrous" to spend €1 billion on a tunnel connecting Heuston and Connolly stations because they were already linked via the Phoenix Park tunnel, where the line could be developed for a fraction of the cost.
Labour's spokeswoman on transport, Ms Róisín Shortall TD, said the review "will not be worth the paper it is written on" unless the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, was able to commit the recommended investment over the next 20 years.
The requirement for €8 billion of investment between now and 2022 "indicates clearly the extent of the demands on Minister Brennan and the Government", but she said institutional reforms were also required to make the railways work. "The review is damning of the relationship between Iarnród Éireann and the Government" in terms of certainty in planning and decision-making, Ms Shortall said.
"This will require the Minister's immediate attention if the SRR is to mean anything." She said it "beggars belief" that the review did not assess the potential of lines proposed for exclusion from the investment programme, saying they required further evaluation. "If the SRR was established to examine all lines, then why they did they not assess these lines?"
However, she welcomed the recommendation that freight services should be maintained and said the Minister must now "put an end to his threats to cut back on rail freight ... and develop a subsidy scheme to enhance existing freight lines".
The Green Party's transport spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan TD, said the review's "message to the Irish people is crystal clear - stick with your car" because the Government was still "massively biased in favour of roads".
Though the Minister "is never done telling us about all the public transport plans that he has sitting on his desk", the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, had made it clear that there was no money for anything other than roads.
Far from a "golden age" for rail travel, Mr Ryan said, the message for the next 20 years was: "Keep the weeds down on our existing track, try to avoid any crashes and buy a few new carriages every now and then to keep the complaints down. " What he found remarkable was that both the SRR and the Government's motorway programme were targeting inter-urban routes radiating from Dublin. "The National Spatial Strategy may as well be consigned to the bin."
The Chambers of Commerce of Ireland broadly welcomed the review but also expressed concerns about its compatibility with the NSS, particularly in relation to the "pressing needs" of designated growth centres along the western seaboard.
An Taisce warned that if the lines excluded from the investment programme were closed down, "40 per cent of Irish railways in place in 1987 will have been abandoned", and it welcomed Mr Brennan's refusal to accept this recommendation.
