Irish Rail has bowed to the inevitable and scrapped the new timetable for Dublin commuter train services. The changes were to allow more intercity services but the knock-on problems in terms of delays and congestion of commuter train services on the north side of Dublin proved insurmountable. The old timetable will be largely reintroduced next week.
Irish Rail’s management have apologised for the unforeseen disruption, as well they should. The debacle points to a worrying weakness in terms of its operational capacity.
That said, the problem is not entirely of Irish Rail’s making. Few would argue that there is a not a need for more intercity and commuter services. Delivering them on a suburban rail network that has received little significant investment since the Dart was launched in 1984 is a tall order.
The difficulties encountered in running one extra train from Belfast on the current system makes the blizzard of rail strategy documents that have emanated from the Department of Transport during this Government look like the stuff of fantasy.
Rail services are not the only area in which decades of underinvestment in infrastructure is finally catching up with us. Similar bottlenecks have arisen with the electricity network and water supplies. Consequently, the promises by the Government to address the overriding issue of the day -– housing – look as fantastical as its plans for the railway network.
The announcement in last week’s budget that some ¤3 billion of the proceeds from the selling down of the State’ s stake in AIB will be invested in water and energy infrastructure is welcome. But ¤1 billion extra set aside for Irish Water and the ¤750 million allocated to electricity grid infrastructure are unlikely to be sufficient. Massive infrastructural investment is required in these areas and in transport to meet the needs of the State .
The logic of using the ¤14 billion that the State stands to receive from Apple to address these chronic deficits seems unassailable. But planning and delivery remain huge challenges.