The expansion of Dublin’s Dart network is a vital cog in planning for the capital city.
Better public transport improves people’s lives and saves them from painful commutes. In turn, this helps reduce transport emissions. These transport links are central to spatial planning and so-called compact housing development. Fail on public transport, and a central plank of Ireland’s climate strategy is broken. And with the completion of the last commuter rail project, the Luas cross-city, now more than seven years in the past, there is a lot of catching up to do.
Big infrastructure projects take time. And while construction is part of this, so is our planning process. And as the first big Dart expansion – the Dart West project to improve services out to Maynooth and Dunboyne – now shows, when objectors go to court, everyone has to hold their breath to see what emerges.
Like many big projects, this was first mooted in the early 2000s and subsequently put on hold following the financial crash. Now the future timeline – and perhaps shape – of this key project depends on what happens over a few days in the High Court in June, following objections from two local businesses which will be seriously affected.
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And this will be a key marker in the wider plans to expand the wider Dart network in a sequences of projects.
Dart+ West, as it is formally known, is designed to double train services along the Maynooth line from six to 12 per hour, increasing hourly passenger capacity from 5,000 to more than 13,000 each way. It is a significant piece of work, including a new station at Spencer Dock in Dublin and the electrification of the rail line to Maynooth and the M3 Parkway near Dunboyne. It involves the closure of level crossings, and the building of new bridges, underpasses and station infrastructure.
Read the planning and consultation documents and you get a sense of the big challenges in retrofitting existing rail lines that run through urban areas. As the old saying of the reply to the person looking for direction in rural Ireland goes: “If I was you, I wouldn’t start from here.”
The Dart West project first went to consultation in 2020 and to Bord Pleanála in 2022 and emerged two years later with the granting of a Railway Order, effectively the go-ahead to start building. The timeline reflects the complexity of the planning process and the regulations involved – including consultations with those affected, environmental impact studies, interactions with planners and so on.
The procurement process for building the project is now under way, with construction due to start in late 2026.
But now there is a new risk of delay. Two companies in Ashtown, which is near the Phoenix Park and along the railway line, are taking judicial review proceedings to object to the Railway Order. These proceedings will be heard in June and the outcome is, by its nature, unpredictable. Until the proceedings are decided, the Railway Order remains on hold.
The proceedings are from two adjacent businesses in Ashtown – a branch of Gowan Motors, a car sales company, and Burke Brothers, a hardware and electrical wholesaler. Part of the land on which both operate would be the subject of a compulsory purchase order. According to consultation documents published by Dart West, a range of options were considered for Ashtown, a complex challenge involving the replacement of a level crossing with an underpass.
The one chosen was judged to be the best and least disruptive generally. But the impact on Gowan Motors was said to be “severe” and on Burke Brothers even more serious, or “profound” in the planning jargon. For Burke Brothers, the documents say that “it would require this business to operate at a reduced scale on the existing site or to move to a new location to ensure the continuity of the business”. A large number of submissions expressed concern about this.
A few things seem clear here. This project needs to go ahead as quickly as possible. A 50-year-old wholesaler and a car sales business have a right to try to safeguard their future. And in a rational process there has to be a way to sort this out – even if it involves compensation to allow for the relocation of one or even both of the businesses in excess of what would be received under the compulsory purchaser order for the land involved.
While we don’t know what the judicial review proceedings will seek, the companies in their submissions during the planning consultations have noted other options for Ashtown that could have been chosen.
They have also taken issue with some of the processes. Were the court to direct that these options need to be looked at again, or that the planning process was not properly followed, further delays would occur. The new planning court is dealing with issues much more expeditiously and is, presumably, developing its expertise. But it is still not its job to look at the wider interest of the community, beyond what is laid down in legislation. It has to decide on the legal arguments.
We have seen before how long Humpty Dumpty can take to be put together again when planning issues go to court. A High Court decision in 2020 on a single objection to a large wastewater project in Clonshaugh in north Dublin quashed the existing planning permission and sent the project back to An Bord Pleanála.
The reason was that Irish Water had not fulfilled obligations under the Waste Water Discharge Regulations to seek observations from the Environmental Protection Agency on wastewater discharges. This project is required to underpin the building of houses on land across north County Dublin and commercial development, because the Ringsend facility is operating above capacity.
The case shows that the courts, rather than seeking a solution to a procedural problem, can often upend a project timeline fundamentally. The overly complex web of processes and procedures with which those promoting big projects have to comply gives ample room for objectors. Somewhere in all of this, the wider public good is all too often not getting sufficient weight.
When a big project goes to court, everyone is forced to hold their breath. And with large public investment planned in the coming years, there is going to be a lot more of this to come.
