Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

Murph85

We have a surplus of what ? 56 billion euro. we have the money! Whats their genius plan? reinvent the wheel again and let inflation double the cost of the new cheaper project and start building it in 2040's?! because that is exactly what they have done several times. There is currently a good bit of tension in the cabinet between the greens and FFG about the road spend etc... rail has been starved of investment since the foundation of the state, rail can get the majority of all funding now...

I wonder what the cost of a tunnel would be, that would basically be dart underground and dublin metro. Going to Heuston, one stop around Tara Street, for central Dublin for going east to west and north to south, link it with the northern line and similar stops as planned. Would that work?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120919720#Comment_120919720

You cant throw money at projects like these to speed them up. There is a limit to how much work can actually get done in a given year.

The most that can be spent and used in a given year for this project will probably be no more than 1-2bn per annum?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120919992#Comment_120919992

Not at all.

You could put three shifts of civil servants in ABP working 8 hour shifts around the clock seven days a week to get a decision made.

Never gonna happen- but in theory you could.

pigtown

Thing is though there's a shortage of planners throughout Ireland/UK/Aus/NZ/Canada so you'd want to pay top dollar to get enough people to do that

specialbyte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920155#Comment_120920155

ABP currently doesn't employ enough trained planners to fill one 8 hour shift let alone three of them. They are understaffed and struggling to recruit staff. As are many of the local councils also trying to hire planners.

You can't just grab any old random civil servant. Planners have specific training and experience that is needed to do their job. While there might be a small amount of scope for adding civil servants onto low scale cases like appeals to house extensions etc that isn't likely to free up many inspectors for strategic infrastructure.

It is is well known that there are a stack of inspectors reports ready and waiting for the board to review that they haven't done yet. That's the bigger backlog right now.

marno21

The ABP issue seems to be sorting itself out thankfully. 139 cases decided last week. The big issue is that many of these are from mid 2022.

The good thing is they seem to be prioritising decisions on appeals to Large scale Residential Development applications. This is the successor to the SHD housing scheme where they went direct to ABP. This is great to see

cgcsb

DART+West has past it's anniversary in ABP with no oral hearing date announced and Metrolink is fast approaching it's anniversary in the same situation.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920191#Comment_120920191

Yes I am aware that you can’t just grab any civil servant.

ABP has had this problem for years, what has the minister with direct control of that portfolio done about it- very little.

All our infrastructure runs through the pinch point of ABP and yet the government didn’t think to add capacity to this incredibly important body!

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920360#Comment_120920360

It’s just not enough though is it?

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920440#Comment_120920440

There's no silver bullets unfortunately. They need to be doing 60 cases or so to keep up so imo it's a huge step in the right direction.

The issue now is infrastructure projects rather than housing and general planning appeals. They're much more resource intensive inside ABP.

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920360#Comment_120920360

Go again, know someone still waiting on a decision from a Dec 2021 objection.

Personally think a lot of this goes back to the 2008 and the years following the Celtic tiger crash. There was a narrative in the media and amongst experts that construction was bad and it drove a lot of young people in a different career path.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920794#Comment_120920794

I'm not for a minute suggesting that everything has been solved but there has been a noticable uptick in decisions in recent months. Obviously that's on the organisation as a whole and not case specific.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920155#Comment_120920155

Pouring money at ABP will only see 1 decision made quicker, the point is you cant really expedite the build and other processes by throwing money at it.

Its not a case of we have more than 9bn surplus this year, so we throw it all at Metrolink now and it'll just get built. The money literally cant be spent that quickly because many parts of the project are only able to be financed once the project has progressed enough.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920975#Comment_120920975

Why cant decisions for different applications happen in parallel? Or am I picking you up wrong?

If there’s enough capacity surely multiple jobs can be assessed at the same time?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120922576#Comment_120922576

Misunderstanding - I mean that ABP is only 1 part of the equation, once approved you still can only spend a finite amount of money per annum on the project, because any more would not speed up the works.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120923027#Comment_120923027

Yeah but the big hold up is planning?

Spend money on increasing the planning decisions and you get to construction quicker.

I mean how long has it been since final design started consultation and planning? A year or two?

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120923043#Comment_120923043

Its a hold-up rather than the big one. They are continuing pre-construction works in the background so should be ready to move quickly once approval is given.

The understaffing of ABP is a problem, but it would require going back in time a few years and investing in it for it to be of any relevance to Metrolink now.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120923210#Comment_120923210

Yeah I suppose but if we are sitting here on the same situation in 9 months or a year, well then it would have made sense to widen the decision pipeline (throw more trained people at it) asap.

Also it makes sense from an overall infrastructure for Ireland going forward point of view- the amount of infrastructure needed is incredible- that all has to go through this pinch point.

Anyway getting off topic with that rant.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120923983#Comment_120923983

If this pinch point were solved then labour for the construction stage is another pinch point to be addressed.

A construction downturn in Australia would be a much bigger help for solving that than any action the Irish Government could take

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120924177#Comment_120924177

You address each problem (preferably before) but as each one comes up.

What’s the alternative, leave it as is and every other major project gets bogged down?

The Irish government has no control over what happens in Australia, but it has control over ABP.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120924996#Comment_120924996

So far the ABP issue isnt stalling Metrolink as work is still going on in the background to prepare for commencement of the project in full, on the assumption that permission is granted.

Were the project given the green light today, these timelines likely wouldnt change materially at this stage.

I agree ABP and the general planning backlog is a huge problem for the state, but it is not significantly hampering ML delivery timeframe at this moment.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120925192#Comment_120925192

Hmmmm I’m not sure I’d agree with this….. if we had a decision 6 months earlier we could be in construction 6 months earlier than we would be other wise no?

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120925649#Comment_120925649

Not necessarily. Construction couldn't start until the preliminary works are done. These are ongoing, so even if permission was granted tomorrow, they'd have to wait for these works to finish.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120925692#Comment_120925692

Yeah. I could say that if the builders knew we’d have a decision within 4-6 months then preliminaries would’ve started earlier but we’ll be here all day arguing the point.

It’s just unfortunate ABP wasn’t and isn’t resourced so that we’d have decisions on all major infrastructure projects within 4-6 months.

Sierra Oscar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120920373#Comment_120920373

Oral hearing arrangements currently in the works it seems.

https://twitter.com/DublinCommuters/status/1686830678158061568

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120932265#Comment_120932265

Does that indicate how close it could be to a decision? At least in theory?..

marno21

Spring I believe is the expected date. I’d imagine at least 6 months for a decision after that

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120933114#Comment_120933114

Wow so 2 years just for a planning decision. That'd be about a third the total project time in developed countries. We're 5 years deep in metrolink at present, another year at least untill a spade touches ground

tom1ie

Absolutely scandalous it takes two years for a decision.

That’s not including if this goes to a JR!!- which is fairly certain by the sounds of things.

cgcsb

I think just abolish the whole system, start again and keep it as simple as possible. Look at international planning systems and cherry pick the most effective parts. It's impossible for Ireland to develop a 1st World infrastructure at such a slow pace, the rest of the world will have moved on before we can reach the stage 3 public sub consultation on nickers colour on the ribbon cutting day which will likely go to the ECH anyway because of a butterfly that's intimidated by the selected colour.

We need to just let professionals make technical decisions within the law and design guidance and just stop allowing politicians to have a say in those decisions.