News broke yesterday morning that the State had bought an O’Connell Street development site known as Dublin Central in a surprise move to facilitate the development of MetroLink – the huge public transport infrastructure project that politicians say is crucial for the sustainability of the capital.
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers appeared on Morning Ireland and said the infrastructure project would “probably take about 10 years to build”. He expected early work to begin in 2028, with the project completed in the mid-2030s. Chambers said that “finalised costings” had not been made available to him yet.
Asked if the Government would set an upper limit for the costs of the project, Chambers said: “Well, that’s the informed decision Government will have to make when we’ve received the final business case and the cost range, and when that’s concluded, we’ll be able to set out the detail of that.”
As Olivia Kelly reports this morning, almost three quarters of a billion euro will have been spent on the MetroLink rail project by the end of the year, before construction of the 19km line begins. This includes the cost of the 2.5 acre O’Connell Street site, which was sold to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) by the UK property group Hammerson.
Kelly was reporting from the Oireachtas committee on infrastructure and National Development Plan delivery, where Michael Flynn, interim programme director for MetroLink, was fielding questions from politicians on the pace and cost of the project. More than €525 million has been spent on MetroLink to date and another €200.5 million in expenditure is forecast by the end of the year.
A “further ramp-up” in spending is expected in 2027 “as MetroLink will be on site next year”, with the main construction following from 2028, Flynn said.
Flynn is the temporary replacement for Sean Sweeney, who surprised politicians when he left the €550,000-a-year role at the end of June. TII said it secured approval this week to advertise for Sweeney’s permanent replacement.
The Government is well aware that it has to get big projects such as MetroLink right, and it cannot afford either financially or in reputational terms for such ventures to turn into a perceived boondoggle – despite how necessary the public transport project is. Any delay or cost overrun that could be compared with the national children’s hospital has to be evaded, particularly at a point in time when Ministers like Chambers have staked so much of their reputation on making big projects faster and easier to deliver. Legal challenges and costly delays have to be surmounted.
Kelly also has an analysis piece that explains how TII “has an impressive record of making legal challenges go away by throwing money at the problem. A case in point was its deal to purchase a row of houses last December at Dartmouth Square in Ranelagh, Dublin, for a combined total of more than €30 million.”
She explains how the deal to buy the city centre plot of land this week “dwarfs its Ranelagh house-buying spree and is the single biggest MetroLink property acquisition to date”.
Hare coursing
Meanwhile, TDs in the Dáil last night voted against a ban on hare coursing – the controversial sport that involves a hare being chased down by dogs.
In her Dáil sketch today, Miriam Lord reports on the over and back between People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy – who brought forward the failed Bill – and Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
Martin claimed politicians had to make more of an effort to “bring people” along with them when trying to impose such a ban, arguing that some people feel their perspectives are “under sustained attack and threat now, and whether that’s justified or not, that’s the reality”.
A baffled Murphy maintained that the public are way ahead of politicians on this issue. It is quite likely that ordinary people might find themselves perplexed that there is so much political effort going into maintaining and protecting pursuits that are as controversial as they are minority, such as hare coursing and fox hunting.
It is well known that there are individuals in each of the three main parties who did not agree with their party line to oppose a ban on the “rural pursuit”. Neither Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael nor Sinn Féin offered their TDs a free vote on the issue, with Martin arguing in the Dáil yesterday that free votes are only allowed “in respect of human life issues”.
In other news from Leinster House, Cormac McQuinn reports on the budget asks of Fianna Fáil backbenchers, which were aired at a special meeting of the parliamentary party. They include income tax relief, an increased price ceiling for the Help-to-Buy scheme and inheritance tax reform.
And in advance of Kevin Bakhurst’s appearance before the Public Accounts Committee this morning, Harry McGee writes about how RTÉ will receive fees from almost 200,000 fewer TV licences this year than it did in 2022, the year before the broadcaster became embroiled in its payments scandal.
After the Road Safety Authority (RSA) appeared before an Oireachtas transport committee yesterday, Jack Horgan-Jones reveals that Minister of State for Road Transport Seán Canney told the RSA he was concerned about its “lack of visibility” following a series of road deaths late last year.
The Galway East TD, who represents the Independents in Government at Cabinet, wrote to the RSA in a letter last November that “the lack of a prominent spokesperson from the RSA in the media, and a timely response to these events, has been notable”.
Elsewhere, the front-page story of the newspaper is about how the US carried out another round of strikes on Iran on Wednesday night, hours after president Donald Trump said that recent Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz signalled the end of the ceasefire. You can get updates on the conflict throughout the day on our liveblog.
It came as Donald Trump threw a summit of Nato leaders into disarray on Wednesday as he demanded the United States cut trade ties with Spain and made renewed claims on Greenland, but later changed tack and said there had been love and “a lot of unity”.
Best Reads
MEPs yesterday passed a non-binding motion calling for sanctions to ban the future sale of alumina to Russia, prompting Irish Ministers like Thomas Byrne to insist that Aughinish Alumina has not led to an embarrassing start to Ireland’s EU presidency. Jack Power’s Europe Letter is all about the story that the country is trying to tell about itself during the six-month term as president of the Council of the European Union.
In the opinion section, Newton Emerson tracks the thread between the downfall of disgraced child rapist Jeffrey Donaldson and a Border poll, arguing that it is “time to consider the serious possibility that the Democratic Unionist Party will be destroyed by the Jeffrey Donaldson scandal”.
And Naomi O’Leary asks if the far-right French leader Marine Le Pen is the best candidate to become the president of France.
The midweek episode of Inside Politics is out, following a bonus edition on Tuesday after the resignation of British MP Nigel Farage. The latest episode is about Germany at a crossroads: football, political frustration and the far right.
Playbook
Dáil
08.47am Parliamentary Questions: Oral – Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine
10.23am Parliamentary Questions: Oral – Minister for Health
12.00pm Leaders’ Questions (Sinn Féin, Labour Party, Independent and Parties Technical Group, Independent Technical Group)
12.34pm Other Members’ Questions
12.42pm Questions on Policy or Legislation
1.12pm Bills for Introduction: Defence (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2026 – First Stage
1.17pm SOS
1.57pm Government Business: Statements on Dementia
4.22pm Government Business: Health (Provision of Contraception Prescribing Service in Retail Pharmacy Businesses) Bill 2026 – Second Stage
6.14pm Topical Issues
7.14pm Private Members’ Bill or Committee Report (alternating weekly): Social Housing Passport Bill 2026 – Second Stage
9.14pm Dáil adjourns
Seanad
09.30am Commencement Matters
10.30am Order of Business
11.15am Eight motions without debate, all from the Department of Housing relating to planning and development regulations
11.25am SOS
11.30am Government Business: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026 – Second Stage
12.45pm SOS
1pm Government Business: Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026 – Committee Stage
4pm Government Business: Housing and Residential Tenancies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 – Second Stage
Committees
RTÉ is up at the Public Accounts Committee at 10.30am
