While the argument about Luas rages on in Dublin, a group of railway enthusiasts is about to extend its own railway system and open a new station.
It's happening in one of the State's most sparsely populated areas, Dromod, about 12 miles north of Longford town and without the aid of taxpayers' money.
The Cavan and Leitrim Railway Supporters Association is extending the old narrow-gauge railway first opened in 1887.
The narrow gauge of 3 ft connected Dromod to Belturbet in Co Cavan via Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.
A branch ran to Drumshanbo and was later extended to serve the Arigna coalfields.
At the outset, livestock carriage was the backbone of the operation. Later the Arigna coalmines kept the wagons rolling but when the ESB built its generating station to burn Arigna coal, the fate of the line was sealed.
In the final decades of its operation the line was a virtual working museum because from the 1930s on, locomotives and stock from other defunct narrow-gauge systems were transferred to the line, which closed in March 1959.
It closed because the cost of converting the railway to diesel operation was considered too expensive in relation to the traffic available.
According to Bray-born David Parkes, the re-laying of the first half-mile of track was possible only because the area qualified for International Fund for Ireland, Interreg and Leader funding.
"When we arrived here first in the early 1990s we thought everything was destroyed but when we cut away the shrubbery we discovered that most things, except the line, were still in place," he says.
Without direct aid from the Irish taxpayer, the first half-mile of the track is open and operates as a tourist attraction from May to October.
David and his colleagues from the Irish Narrow-Gauge Trust had salvaged exhibits from a similar project in Cahir, Co Tipperary, which collapsed with the failure of the Tipperary Enterprise programme.
"We had between 3,000 and 4,000 here last weekend alone for a rally and we're hoping to extend that as the project becomes more widely known.
"Our objective is to extend the line to Mohill where the station is being restored and make this a really exciting outing for those who love the old railways."