Posted online: Feb 25th, 2010

A motion from Donegal TD Joe McHugh calling for a feasibility study into the development of rail networks in the north-west of Ireland received the backing of eight major political parties at this week’s meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Cavan.
Members of the British Labour Party, Fine Gael, SDLP, Fianna Fáil, Labour, Sinn Féin, UUP, and the Green Party supported Deputy McHugh’s motion.
It was formally seconded by the former Under Secretary for Northern Ireland Lord Alf Dubbs (British Labour Party), who told the Conference that he regrets not having pursued rail provision more vigorously when serving as a British Government minister with responsibility for Northern Ireland.
Addressing the Assembly, Deputy Joe McHugh maintained that decades of poor communication between Dublin and Belfast/London administrations disabled coordinated planning in the south and west of Ulster.
“The absence of rail services from the region is a tangible example of this administrative problem. Donegal’s last rail track was closed in 1961, and today the north-west is the only region of this island that is not serviced by public railways,” he said.
He continued: “500,000 people live in the five Irish counties that are not serviced by railway, and in an Irish context the population of the proposed Dublin-Donegal rail corridor is second only to the population of the existing Dublin-Cork rail corridor.
“I recognise that the Irish & British Exchequers are undergoing significant difficulties today, and we must be realistic. A developed rail infrastructure in the North—West will not appear today or tomorrow. But the fact remains that 27 of the 32 counties on this island are serviced by rail, and I believe that the five counties in the North-West deserve as good as the rest of the island,” he said.
A resolution calling for a feasibility study of a rail project connecting the North-West of the Irish island with Belfast, Dublin, and the Western Rail Corridor will now be sent from the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly to the Irish Department of Transport and the British Department of Transport, accompanied by a 29-page report authored by Deputy Joe McHugh.