MetroLink boss Seán Sweeney is resigning from the project to develop Dublin’s long-awaited underground rail line less than two years after being appointed to the €550,000-a-year role.
The 67-year-old New Zealander said he was stepping down as programme director with “deep regret” after making the decision for family reasons.
His resignation comes shortly before updated cost estimates for the rail project, due to begin construction next year, are presented to Government for approval.
Previous costings, prepared in advance of the start of the planning process for the 19km rail line, estimated €9.5 billion as the midpoint of a “credible” cost range of between €7.16 billion and €12.25 billion.
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However, it is expected the cost of the line, running from Swords in north Co Dublin to Charlemont in Dublin 4, serving the city centre and airport, will have increased since and could be up to 25 per cent higher.
In a statement, Sweeney said leading the MetroLink programme had been “one of the greatest professional privileges of my career”.
“However, after several years away from home, the sacrifice of being separated from my partner, children and grandchildren, who are over 10,000 miles away, has become unsustainable,” he said. “It is with deep regret that I leave MetroLink. However, I know it is the right thing to do for everyone.”
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Sweeney said MetroLink will have “many parents” and he believed his role was to “get the programme up and running”.
“I am proud to leave the programme with a highly committed and experienced executive team, full Government support as well an operational Railway Order and MetroLink fully funded into construction. MetroLink is no longer a ‘proposed’ plan; it is a live delivery project.”
Enabling works are expected to start on the ground this year, with contracts for construction of the line also to be issued before the end of the year, with completion expected in the mid-2030s.
Sweeney said he believed the “market appetite is huge” for the project and that “political support is firm”.
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Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) chief executive Lorcan O’Connor said it was with a “mix of gratitude and regret” that he was confirming Sweeney would leave the project this summer.
“While we are sad to see him leave we wish him well with the next chapter of his life.”
He said an open competition to find Sweeney’s successor would begin immediately and that Michael Flynn, deputy programme director, would fill the post on an interim basis.
O’Connor and Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien said Sweeney’s departure would not delay the project.
“The MetroLink project team have my full support, that of my department, and of the Government,” O’Brien added.
Permission for MetroLink was granted last September but the project, set to be the largest infrastructure project in the State, was thrown into jeopardy last November after a group of Ranelagh residents took a legal challenge to its development.
The challenge was withdrawn after TII agreed to purchase the residents’ homes on Dartmouth Square in a deal understood to be worth more than €30 million. Sweeney was understood to be instrumental in securing the deal.
In addition to his €550,000 salary, Sweeney received some €30,000 in relocation expenses, which TII has confirmed he will not be required to repay. However, he will not be receiving an exit package.
