The fallout from Aer Lingus's decision to terminate its Shannon-Heathrow service illustrates the central role of international transport connections in Irish economic and social life, writes Tony Kinsella
Ireland desperately needs a comprehensive, integrated transport policy. An informed national debate on our options is a prerequisite.
As an island, we need both sea and air transport links. Almost half of last year's 21 million passenger journeys from Dublin airport were to UK destinations.
We have either hit, or are about to hit, what industry specialists call the "peak oil" moment, when half the planet's oil will have been extracted. Dr M King Hubbert (who correctly predicted the 1970 peak in US domestic oil production) foresaw the global oil peak for 1996, while others suggest it is currently taking place. The International Energy Agency believes it could begin to happen from 2017; the most optimistic forecast, from the US Geological Survey, suggests 2040.
Whichever set of forecasts one chooses to accept, the reality is clear: some time in the next 30 years, oil output will peak. Thereafter output will steadily decline, and prices will steadily rise.
Oil will be increasingly concentrated on those sectors where there is no obvious replacement, while the use of substitutes will increase. Producing oil from coal is expensive and messy, though possible, and biofuels will have a contribution to make.
Air travel is one sector where few alternatives to oil-based fuels exist. Although Brazil's Embraer company has sold more than 1,000 ethanol-powered Ipanema aircraft, these are single-engine turboprop crop-dusters. There is not only no alternative source of fuel for commercial passenger aircraft, but there is no alternative on the horizon. Air travel is likely to revert to its pre-low-cost price levels.
From November of this year, London's rebuilt St Pancras station will handle the 394m-long Eurostar trains running along Britain's High Speed 1 line to the Channel Tunnel. These trains will make central Paris just 2¼ hours away from central London, with central Brussels a two-hour trip.
Even when the Eurostar trains had to clatter over Kent commuter lines to get to the tunnel, they still managed to take 68 per cent of the London-Paris traffic and 63 per cent of the London-Brussels traffic. In 10 years, these electrically-powered trains replaced almost 400,000 short-haul flights.
The first of Britain's 29 Hitachi high-speed trains have just been delivered, and these 225km/h trains will come into service in the southeast from 2009.
Investment in high-speed rail links is beginning to offer Europe a network stretching from Stockholm to Seville and from Budapest to London. The Economist acknowledged in July that Europe is "in the grip of a high-speed rail revolution".
The French TGV, German ICE, and Spanish AVE trains average 300km/h, and have begun to rival air travel for journeys of up to 1,500km. A five-hour train ride takes you from city centre to city centre. The same journey by air is a two-hour flight, but transit to and from the airports and a 90-minute provision for check-in and security make rail faster. When you add in comfort and environmental factors, rail emerges as a clear winner.
Dublin is 463km from London, making Dublin-London train journeys of about three hours possible. Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Lyon and Marseilles could all be between four and seven hours away using onward-bound trains.
Physical international connections are vital for our island, and several are under consideration or construction. These include gas pipelines, heavy-duty internet links and electricity connectors, but what of a high-speed rail connection? What of a physical connection - a bridge, tunnel or combination of both - which could carry rail, electricity and fibre-optic connectors?
Andy Pollak raises the issue in the latest edition of the bulletin from the Centre for Cross Border Studies, A Note from the Next Door Neighbours. He points out that, at its narrowest, the sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland measures a mere 34km.
There are several points along the Irish Sea where the distance is closer to 100km, but even these wider distances pose no overwhelming engineering challenge. A tunnel could be bored through the seabed or partially laid on the sea floor, or bridges could reach out from the coasts to artificial islands, from where tunnel sections would begin.
Selection of the most appropriate site for a link across the Irish Sea would depend on research into geological formations, weather and wave patterns, as well as a host of other factors. The Irish Sea is no millpond, but then neither is the Kattegat between Denmark and Sweden.
The most likely sites would have to be close to the three main ferry routes. The Irish terminal would require onward high-speed links to the rest of the island. A crossing from the Dublin region would involve British agreement to upgrade its west coast mainline and north Wales lines to high-speed standards; a northern link would require similar upgrading of the London-Glasgow-Stranraer routes; a link from the southeast would involve work on the London-Bristol-Swansea-Fishguard line.
London has a poor record of rail infrastructure investment, but domestic pressure for high-speed links can only increase once the southeast high-speed services begin. Prof Rod Smith of Imperial College London suggests that once people see these services, "they'll clamour for more".
The project will be an economic and engineering challenge. The Channel Tunnel cost €14 billion, while Japan's 54km Seikan tunnel cost €5.4 billion. However, the fuel and climate costs of flying should be factored in.
The 50.5km Channel Tunnel, the 36km road bridge between Shanghai and Ningbo (due to open in 2009) and the 16km Oresund bridge/tunnel linking Sweden and Denmark point the way. Work is well advanced on the Swiss Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be the longest tunnel in the world on completion.
A Limerick-London rail journey of about four hours would be highly competitive with the lost glories of Heathrow. Debate about feasibility studies on such a link would more closely resemble a transport policy debate than comparisons of the relative merits of London's different airports.
It is a debate Ireland needs.