£125m in EU funds for Luas are reallocated, mostly for Dublin

A long chapter in the Luas funding saga was closed yesterday when EU Commission and Irish Government officials agreed to reallocate £125 million earmarked EU funding to other Irish projects, mainly Dublin transport initiatives.

A meeting in Dublin of the monitoring committee, which administers the Irish structural funds spending, also confirmed that funding would be maintained for other projects, namely the National Museum (£8 million), the National Conference Centre (£26 million), the Midlands peat power station, and training programmes.

The expected Luas reallocation had become inevitable because of the delays in starting the project in time for the programming period which ends in December 1999.

The Commissioner for Regional Affairs, Ms Monika Wulf Mathies, was "extremely pleased" that most of the Luas funding "will now be used for other public transport projects in Dublin.

"I am particularly delighted that the Ballymun area will also benefit," she said. Grants now going to childcare and employment projects "underline that people are at the heart of European Social Policy".

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, said "today's allocation means that Dublin benefits twice over with a windfall of extra resources to undertake additional public transport projects and provide better services for commuters".

The Democratic Left spokesman on transport, Mr Eamon Gilmore, criticised the decision to divert a third of the funds to non-public transport projects.

A total of £125 million, the bulk of it the Luas allocation and £8 million from the cancelled Blanchardstown biomass station, was redistributed as follows:

£39 million to Dublin suburban rail for improvements in outer suburban rail and DART services (16 new carriages), extra services on the Maynooth line and longer trains on the Northern suburban line; doubling the Clonsilla to Maynooth track and improved signalling on the line;

£15 million to the Dublin Transport Initiative for bus corridors, including a link to Ballymun, cycle lanes and traffic calming measures, and 50 buses for bus corridors;

£12 million for mainline rail track renewal to complete track upgrading on Mallow-Killarney, Cherryville-Kilkenny, and Mullingar-Carrick-on-Shannon stretches;

£31 million for national roads;

£12 million for planning and design work on Luas;

£8 million for investment in broadband technology; £1.6 million for employment action; £0.8 million for childcare.

The £21 million EU support for the £120 million, 120megawatt, peat-powered generating station, to be built with state-of-the-art technology near Edenderry, in Co Offaly, by the Finnish group, IVO, was confirmed.