'Build an Olympic village' for Metrolink construction workers, says transport professor

Vivienne Clarke

A transport expert has said there was a need to “think outside the box” to find solutions for building the proposed Metrolink from Dublin city to the airport, after it emerged that 8,000 construction workers would be needed to build the line.

Transportation Professor Brian Caulfield of Trinity College Dublin told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, “We need to be clever about this.”

The Oireachtas Transport Committee was told on Wednesday that Dublin’s planned new metro system will need about 8,000 workers to construct.

Prof Caulfield suggested that “something like an Olympic village” could be built to accommodate the construction workers, which could subsequently be returned to the State.

He pointed out that a hundred years ago, when the Ardnacrusha power plant was being built, camps were provided for the workers.

“In Dublin for the Metro, and it's not only Metro, we need thousands of construction workers for a number of other projects. We need to be clever about this," he said.

"We could look into building something that would be an asset for the city when the construction is over, something like an Olympic village.

“It could be used for student accommodation, it could be used for housing. You would find a plot of land along the metro line, because that's where we're going to want to have dense housing.

"When it's handed back over to the state, it's what we call a transit-oriented development - in that people have access to really good public transport once it's handed back over to the state.”