Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

I feel so naive, even though I went into the last election pretty much knowing that the Greens would disgrace themselves again, and I still only gave them 4th or 5th preference I think, but I should have just binned them entirely. If you want to go Green go Red, folks

It could be on time or it could be six years late. He doesn’t know.

And yet there’s people out there who defend the pay and perks of politicians.

We all knew before this the 2027 opening date wasn't achievable, and we all know that how long beyond that it will be is "how long is a piece of string" territory. In truth, there has been no revelations this week. The most disappointing thing is how indifferent Ryan is to the project. He should be piling pressure on his partners in government to commit to Metrolink and to push on with it as quickly as possible, instead he seems to just accept talk of delays with a "ah well, nevermind".

He's the one who told us how revolutionary the 2:1 transport spending split would be, with the lions share going to public transport. He is the Transport Minister with the biggest warchest for public transport in the history of the state, yet he seems more interested in moaning about roads than actually delivering public transport.

What the actual....? What? How can a Metrolink line from Swords to Charlemont going to cost €10 billion to the Irish Exchequer? I would find that article to be a load of absolute rubbish. €10 billion my hoop. Who the hell in this day and age is quoting a massive sum of money like that for this sort of project, that will give huge benefits to people living in North Dublin; to a rag like the Irish MOS? It just doesn't make any realistic sense at all.

Will they ever get out off the stage and smell the coffee for once.

This is the same sort of crap from their supposed article about Metrolink not going ahead in their own paper should not have gained any traction from that rag last week while it was completely debunked by senior ministers in our government some days later. When will the hysteria actually stop about Metrolink & just get it built once & for all?

There really needs to be some accountability in the media. I'm all for freedom of the media and wouldn't go as far as forcing them to reveal their source (not that there would be any issues in doing so in this case but there may be in other cases) but they shouldn't be allowed to publish such sensationalist nonsense.

The NDP is extremely important for the future of our country and gobshites shouldn't be allowed an undue influence with these hysterical headlines. That €10bn figure will stick with plenty of people, even though it is complete bs. This is the same kind of thing which the media in the UK was allowed get away with which hugely contributed to Brexit but the same media take no responsibility for the disastrous consequences.

There’s a lot written here, can’t help but laugh at the “five luases” thing. City centre luas capacity is full so without removing most of the Buses from town it’s a non runner.

My family used to buy the Irish MOS when I was a teenager. But now my mum buys it every Wednesday for the Health section. I think the main problem with buying this paper in the first place is that when big infrastructure projects like Metrolink are being talked about by this paper, is that they are the very 1st paper to actually try to discuss and complain about the costs of the project rather than not discussing the long term value of the project for people who will use it in Dublin over the longer term from it's opening date onwards & then into the future.

When @cgcsb says that the €10 billion figure, or maybe under it, may include things covered in the revised NDP like Metrolink, Dart+, BusConnects; those levels of cost does actually appear to make more sense to me at this point as I would find it to be very good value from a transport user's pov. If anyone was given a figure of €10 billion from the very first indication of it being proposed; people would have gone AWOL. They would justified in their stance of protest in saying that Metrolink was going to be expensive in the long run.

But reality will say to us that we are not approaching those levels of costs for this one project alone. People should be able to understand educate themselves that Metrolink would never approach ever the intention of paying €10 billion for one single line if it was going to be extended to places like Sandyford or even down to Cherrywood that is near to areas like Loughlinstown in a few years time. They will begin to understand later on that this headline figure of €10 billion is just a red herring & should not be relevant when talking about it's long term value once it's built for people living in Dublin. If you were building extensions to the Metrolink to those places; the levels of distance that will be travelled between them is so small that the overall costs of it will be negligible in the long run.

A big reason in how I know this is I do live near the areas of Leopardstown & Sandyford over a very long time. As a local person living near this part of south Dublin; I do understand the advantage of using the Luas in that area many times already since it opened to the public about roughly 17 years ago.

So, in final summary, what I am saying to people here is that they should be able to understand that a big chunk of the Metrolink line already being proposed from Swords to Charlemont/Sandyford is a really good first step to getting the job done while the state goes onto build the first iteration of the project. They should be happy that the project is being committed to getting built by the state under the revised NDP rather than going on to moan about it.

'firm commitment' and actually building the Metro are not the same thing.

As much as this hurts, experiences tells me - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that the Mail on Sunday story is almost certainly the true one.

Airport Luas at the most.