Ryan needs to make his Green mark by implementing carbon reducing transport options

Jul 25, 2021 Warehousing Ireland BREXIT, e-commerce, Materials Handling, Multimodal, News Comments Off on Ryan needs to make his Green mark by implementing carbon reducing transport options

---

WESTERN PEOPLE Editorial 6th July 2021

When Eamon Ryan selected the transport portfolio upon entering coalition government a year ago, one assumes he wanted to stamp his party’s identity on this key department. The Green Party did not get to influence transport in its last term in office from 2007 to 2011 – Fianna Fáíl held the portfolio – so one assumed that Ryan was determined to make up for this lost opportunity.

It could hardly have been a more propitious time for a Green Party minister to head up the transport department. The debate around climate change, and the need for Ireland to reduce its carbon footprint, offered Ryan the sort of opportunity that simply was not available to previous incumbents, even if they had been of a ‘Green’ persuasion. He could simply tear up the old script – and, let’s face it, officials in the Department of Transport have been working off a very tired script for years – and start afresh by championing projects that chime with his party’s policies.

It is somewhat disappointing, therefore, that in his first year in office Eamon Ryan has made little or no impact in a department where there are so many opportunities to leave a long-lasting positive legacy. Obviously, much of the coalition government’s focus over the past year has been on managing the Covid-19 crisis, which has gone on for much longer than anyone anticipated, but that is not a sufficient excuse for the lack of sweeping reforms from the Department of Transport.

A reform that Minister Ryan could initiate at the stroke of the pen is the development of Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the Western Rail Corridor from Athenry to Claremorris, which has been the subject of endless procrastination within the Department of Transport for over a decade. Ironically, Ryan was in government in 2009 when the first phase of the project was opened from Ennis to Galway and that has been a success despite all the doom-mongering that accompanied it. The fact that it became a success having been launched in the teeth of the worst recession in this country’s history makes it all the more remarkable.

Opposition to the Western Rail Corridor in the Department of Transport is hardly a secret but that is not surprising when one considers that the same mandarins who run the department – or their mentors – were vehemently opposed to the building of Knock Airport 40 years ago. It is the job of the minister to stand up to the sceptics and offer a vision – in this case, a greener and more sustainable vision – for the future. Indeed, if that isn’t the remit of a Green Party Minister for Transport then what is?

There are compelling arguments to support the re-opening of the Western Rail Corridor and they have been articulated succinctly and convincingly in the recently-published Bradley Report, which comprehensively rebuts the findings of a hopelessly-flawed EY Report that claimed the project did not offer ‘value for money’. In fact, it would seem that it was EY themselves who were not offering ‘value for money’ by producing a lazy, poorly- researched report that was underpinned by grossly overestimated costs for the rail corridor’s re-opening. John Bradley, a respected economist with the ESRI, has demonstrated quite clearly that there is a strong business case for the restoration of this vital piece of western infrastructure, which should never have been closed in the first place.

The Bradley report has been extremely useful to the campaign to re-open the rail link for two reasons. Firstly, it demolishes the EY study to such an extent that serious questions must be asked about why this report was ever published before it had been properly peer-reviewed.

The second gain from the Bradley Report is quite unexpected. For some years now, an alternative campaign for a greenway on the rail-link has been predicated on the notion that the greenway would ensure the line is ‘protected’ for future rail development. Greenway zealots have been at pains to point out that they are not opposed to the re-opening of a railway; they just think that now is not the time. How ironic, then, that these same campaigners issued a press statement last week arrogantly dismissing a report that gives them the very thing they say they want in the long-term, namely the re-opening of the rail-line. Are they not willing to sacrifice their greenway project for the greater good of economic development in the West of Ireland? It seems not.

Minister Ryan now needs to step up to the mark and use the Bradley Report as the basis for a reappraisal of the Western Rail Corridor so that it is included in the National Development Plan. This should be a flagship project for a Green Party Minister for Transport; a project that has the potential to leave a rich legacy for the West of Ireland in the post-Covid era.

---