We still have no clarity as to what Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien meant when he informed media that the 19km MetroLink project (12km to 14km underground) might now be built in two phases, the first of which would run from Swords to an unidentified point in the city centre.
There has been media speculation that the two-phased approach arises from a concern in Government that the cost of MetroLink not be allowed to grow like a runaway train. By building phase one, some flexibility would be given to Government to limit expenditure if the project’s costs ballooned.
By way of comparison, the channel tunnel (of which 38km is undersea) between Britain and France, which was completed in 1994, cost £4.65 billion, roughly equivalent to £12 billion in today’s money.
When the National Transport Authority (NTA) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) first planned the MetroLink project for Dublin, the public was told the total cost was likely to be €3 billion. At that time, the project envisaged two parallel tunnels (like the Channel Tunnel) and driverless trains.
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However, this capital expenditure was the basis of a cost-benefit analysis published by TII. By 2022, the projected cost had grown to €9.5 billion with a credible range between €7.16 billion and €12.25 billion.
By now the twin-tunnel construction model had been pared back to a single bore tunnel. Plans to integrate MetroLink by incorporating much of the Luas green line to Sandyford were abandoned. The Public Accounts Committee warned that the true cost of MetroLink might be as high as €20 billion and a “worst case” scenario of €23 billion was criticised as an unrealistic outlier by officials.
In May 2025, the newly appointed (but now resigned) MetroLink programme director, Seán Sweeney, warned that the estimate of €7-€12 billion was “going to change”.
A recent article in this newspaper has put the cost as being between €14 and €18 billion. It remains uncertain whether the public hint by O’Brien that MetroLink might be built in two phases suggests that these figures are being fixed by the Government as outer limits of authorised expenditure.
The obvious issue that someone must face on our behalf is whether there is to be an outer limit to the final bill for MetroLink - or such portion of the project as may eventually be built.
We seem to have crashed through conventional cost-benefit analysis procedures by committing ourselves collectively to the project without any proper evaluation of the ultimate cost. This approach sets at nought all public capital expenditure procedures. Some €360 million has already been spent on the planning phase before a shovel has hit the ground.
The fundamental question that has been avoided is whether an expenditure of €20 billion of taxpayers’ money on different projects (including a comprehensive Luas network for the capital and greatly increased Dart-like rail transport) would represent better value for money. The opportunity cost of spending €20 billion on MetroLink is that much alternative transport infrastructure for the Dublin region is postponed for 20 to 30 years.
The strangest feature of this saga has been the governmental strategy of giving NTA/TII the role of official promoter of MetroLink without ever conducting a serious analysis of the alternatives. As I mentioned last week, the former head of Irish Rail informed a Dáil committee that a surface Dart rail link to Dublin Airport could be constructed for €1 billion.
Proponents of MetroLink claim the journey time between Swords and the city centre will be approximately 25 minutes. An existing bus link, Swords Express, provides a service via the Port Tunnel with journey times varying between 23 and 30 minutes.
When did the Oireachtas examine in depth the implications of political commitment to MetroLink in one or two phases with an entirely plausible cost of €20 billion? That never happened.
The Government’s public expenditure department has never conducted a rigorous and published analysis of the opportunity cost, the real cost-benefit advantage based on a realistic estimate of cost, or the value for money implications of what is now afoot.
Why have our investigative media left uninvestigated and unchallenged a process which not merely echoes but resonates deafeningly in cost terms what went wrong with the children’s hospital project?
Why has no one published exactly what would be entailed in building phase one of MetroLink? Where exactly would the city centre terminus of phase one be located? How much would construction of phase one rather than phases one and two actually cost us? What could the potential savings be?
It seems almost incredible that vagueness on this scale is not confronted and analysed in the public or political spheres.
The real question is whether modern Ireland can control costs of major infrastructural investment or whether we are setting in motion another financial runaway train.
