Drogheda Independent

DART expansion plan to Drogheda

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PROJECT Ireland 2040 sets out plans to extend the DART as far as Drogheda by 2027 at the latest.

The plan outlines proposals for a €2 billion DART Expansion Programme which will see the DART extended to Donabate, Rush and Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan and on to Drogheda by 2027.

This will provide a ‘fast, high-frequency electrifie­d service to Drogheda’ according to the plan.

However, the government’s proposed Drogheda Dart Plan has been described as ‘a farcical stunt’ by a local rail user group.

The Commuter North Eail Users Group (CNRUG) said the proposal ‘flies in the face of the National Planning Framework and ignores rip-off fares’.

The group criticised the recent statement made by Deputy Fergus O’Dowd who said a DART extension ‘would be transforma­tional for Drogheda, East Meath and South Louth’.

‘Instead of prioritisi­ng initiative­s which would assist much needed jobs growth in the Greater Drogheda area, the main thrust of Deputy O’Dowd’s statement is focussed on moving even more people away from their local communitie­s to work and study in Dublin,’ said a spokesman for the group.

‘While Deputy O’Dowd claims that ‘1,200 people travel by rail from Drogheda and 400 from Laytown daily,’ he convenient­ly fails to mention just how few travel northwards from the city and intermedia­te stops to these stations – indicative of the failure of successive Government­s to create jobs in sufficient numbers for the 83,000 people now living in the Greater Drogheda area.’

The spokespers­on said this flies directly in the face of the National Planning Framework which sets out to disperse economic developmen­t away from Dublin.

‘So, it can only be described as a hollow, political stunt that completely lacks substance and offers no comfort to rail commuters who face the long and expensive daily commute – and is a ‘cop-out’ as far as job creation in the Greater Drogheda area is concerned.’

CNRUG state Drogheda needs more direct Inter- City services to and from Dublin and Belfast, since in a future post-Brexit scenario, Drogheda will be the closest EU city to the EU:UK land border. Already, it is the largest urban centre on the line between Dublin and Belfast. Along with that, it they claim it needs ‘semi-direct’ trains, picking up or dropping off passengers at Howth Junction; Malahide; Skerries and Balbriggan – and those services could connect to an extension of the slower DART services to serve other intermedia­te stations as well as connecting with the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise service at Drogheda. The Group has called on Minister Shane Ross and local Independen­t Alliance Councillor, Kevin Callan, to get involved in delivering a more appropriat­e local rail strategy.

They criticised the government’s failure to prioritise Drogheda as the key Growth Centre for the North East in the National Developmen­t Plan, and called the DART plan ‘pie in the sky’ at a time when the trains that return from Dublin each morning are almost empty.

‘Give us local jobs in Drogheda and the North East, not DART carriages,’ the spokesman said.

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