The Government has been accused of sitting on a plan to extend the St Stephen's Green-Sandyford Luas line to Cherrywood in south Co Dublin, even though it fully complies with the policy favouring public-private partnerships (PPPs).
The plan, drawn up by a consortium of property developers with land along the route, was first presented to the Department of Public Enterprise in March 2000. However, nearly two years later there is still no firm indication that it will be accepted.
The developers have offered to fund half of the total cost, estimated at between €152 million and €184 million, provided the other half is financed by the Exchequer. But they say the Department of Finance is reluctant to commit money.
At seven kilometres, the proposed extension to Cherrywood would nearly double the length of Luas Line B to cater for a projected 6,800 new homes and some 40,000 new jobs within a kilometre of the route, largely reusing the old Harcourt Street railway line.
The development companies behind the plan include Castle Market Holdings, Carrickmines Properties, Dunloe Ewart, Park Developments and William Neville and Sons, each of which is involved in major residential or commercial developments in the area.
Last week their plan was unanimously endorsed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council¹s transportation strategic policy committee. It is also strongly backed by the county manager, Mr Derek Brady, and by its director of planning, Mr Michael Gough.
The council is prepared to use Section 49 of the Planning Act, 2000, to raise a bond issue as proposed by the consortium, Rathdown Light Rail Ltd, which would be financed by levies on all developers who own land within the one-kilometre corridor.
"We are responding to an initiative by the local authority to extend Luas out to Cherrywood," Dr Peter Bacon, the company's chairman, told The Irish Times. "This could be done by 2006, within three years of Luas Line B being completed," he added.
Dr Bacon also pointed out that plan had been drawn up for the consortium by the Light Rail Project Office, formerly part of CIÉ and now a division of the new Railway Procurement Agency. A total of €4 million had been spent so far on the project.
A formal application to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, is almost ready, including an environmental impact statement, but it cannot proceed without a firm commitment that the Exchequer will match the private-sector funding.
"Our difficulty is trying to get a decision," Dr Bacon said. "We have put a PPP proposal on the table that's consistent with Government policy, but what seems to be a problem is their side of the bargain, the €76 to €89 million (£60 to £70 million) they would have to find.
"Yet only last week it was announced that they were inviting expressions of interest from the private sector in a metro from Dublin Airport to Shanganagh, which carries a tentative estimate of €7 billion and has no possibility of being implemented in the time-scale."
Mr Willie Murray, Rathdown Light Rail's chief executive, stressed that its proposal to extend Luas Line B to Cherrywood would not cut across the metro plan. Because it would be grade-separated at major road junctions, it could be upgraded to a metro later.
Dr Bacon said it would appear that the Department of Finance regarded the metro as notional. "It's an awful lot easier to talk about a €7 billion metro plan than to put their hands in their pockets to co-finance the concrete proposal we have put forward.
"The question is whether all of this is just smoke and mirrors. What we're doing is putting it up to them to cut a deal on a project that can be realised".
A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said it was aware of the proposal, which was the subject of ongoing talks between the developers and the RPA. But it had not yet received "anything formal", such as an application for a light rail order.
