Metrolink planning hearing set to last about six weeks

A new An Bord Pleanála hearing into Dublin’s planned underground rail line will open on Monday, 15 years after the last such hearing.

The €9.5 billion Metrolink is set to run from north of Swords to Dublin Airport, then on to Ballymun, Glasnevin, O’Connell Street and St Stephen’s Green before terminating at Charlemont Street, with 16 stations in all.

The planning hearing is scheduled to last about six weeks.

Various rail projects for the capital have been proposed in recent decades but none have proceeded to build stage, despite more than €100 million being spent on those planned routes.

More than 120 of the 318 parties who made submissions on the application intend to address the hearing. These include residents and businesses affected by the route, politicians, campaign groups, heritage bodies and State agencies.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has previously said he remains confident that the project would receive planning approval this year and be built by the early 2030s.

Speaking earlier this year, Mr Ryan was asked whether planning delays could see the completion date pushed to the latter half of the next decade.

“I don’t accept that Metro will be delayed until the latter half of the next decade. I think it will be a lot sooner,” he replied.

“I was a member of the Public Transportation Office advisory committee. I’ll never forget in the Platform To Change document we wrote in 1999, the engineers said ‘whatever we do, we should build the Metro first and not upgrade the M50’.

“And what did we do? We upgraded the M50 and did not build the Metro. We will build it now.

“There has been so much work done, and the planning is so advanced.

“There are 10,000-page documents that have gone into An Bord Pleanala. This has been analysed inside out, so I’m confident we will get it through planning and we will build quicker than people think.”

Asked when he anticipated MetroLink to be up and running, the minister added: “Early in the next decade.”