Planning delays to ‘add €250m a year to MetroLink bill’
THE cost of the MetroLink is set to rise by €250million a year as a result of planning delays, the State body in charge of transport infrastructure has warned.
Oral hearings with An Bord Pleanála regarding the long-awaited MetroLink, an underground railway intended to connect Dublin Airport with the south of the capital, will take place next Monday.
It is the next step in the process for the project to get planning permission, which is not expected to be signed off until the end of the year.
However, Peter Walsh, chief executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), yesterday said they had warned An Bord Pleanála there would be costs of €250million for every year it is delayed.
He noted a planning application was submitted in September 2022. ‘So you can judge yourself how quickly things are being turned around,’ he stated, before explaining: ‘During the pre-application consultation with An Bord Pleanála, we made it clear delays to the project, given the scale of it, could be measured in time alone at about €250million a year. So on that basis, we felt a year to turn it around would not be bad.
‘And we programmed accordingly and we reported to the National Development Plan Delivery Board that we were suggesting a one-year turnaround, and if that was going to be any different it was outside of anything we were planning. So that was a year and a half, and it’s been a year and a half waiting for an oral hearing, so I’m not sure what else I should or could say.’
It is understood the predicted additional cost of €250million per year is based on inflation costs. Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has said he hopes to see the MetroLink open in the early 2030s. It is currently projected to cost around €9.5billion.
The Irish Daily Mail previously reported that the Government was warned large increases in the cost of ‘megaprojects’ such as the
MetroLink, BusConnects and the Dart+ will ‘require active consideration of project prioritisation’, likely meaning certain other projects may not go ahead.
Mr Walsh also complained that the ‘decision gate’ process that exists to secure funding from central government was adding up to six months to projects. This process means the Government has to review and sign off on proposals for capital projects. It is in place to ensure that they do not run over budget.
Mr Walsh said: ‘We would like to be able to progress projects unimpeded. Part of the frustration I have is that I believe we’ve got extremely good and transparent procedures for the development of projects through seven phases. We engage in public consultation on several occasions during that process.
‘I don’t think anything is hidden, and our experience of the assessments of different decision gates or approval gates has been that not one project has been varied or amended, or altered. But it takes at least six months to get through. So it’s very hard to see where the value is.’
Mr Walsh said they never knew ‘what was enough’ in terms of having done environmental reviews when submitting planning permission applications. He said: ‘The higher you raise the bar, the higher it goes next time, and it’s very easy to express an opinion that says we have not established beyond reasonable scientific doubt that this project will not have an adverse effect on a qualifying interest within a Special Area of Conservation.’
‘Very hard to see where value is’