When will we see Metrolink up and running?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Why has nearly €750 million been spent on MetroLink before laying track?
But first, almost three quarters of a billion euro will have been spent on the Metrolink rail project by the end of this year. And that is before a single line of track has been laid. Joining me to tell me more is Dublin editor with the Irish Times, Olivia Kelly, and associate professor at the School of Engineering at Trinity College, Brian Caulfield. And you're both welcome to the programme. So what's all this money being spent on, Olivia?
Well, a lot of it is racking up in property acquisitions. And we had the situation earlier in the year where after the Metrolink had actually got its planning permission, there was an illegal challenge to it by some residents in Ranla near the Charlemagne stop of the line. Now, to effectively make that legal challenge go away, Transport Infrastructure Ireland decided that they would make them an offer to buy their houses. It's ranla, these are expensive properties. So altogether, that's coming in at around 30 million. So that would be part of that. Other bits of it are, you know, they have their preparation for their planning application, their legal fees. engineering reports worked in preparation for the development of the line, which is considerable.
So you would expect it to be racking up the millions. And if you think about this project as well, it's been in progress for quite a number of years. So those costs obviously have been accruing.
And you've been writing in great detail today about the acquisition of property on O'Connell Street. Talk to us about that. That came with a break. We don't know what the price tag was, but we assume it was. was very high.
Yeah, we know it was somewhere up to 80 million euros. This is a very big site. If people remember it, it's a site, parts of this now, this site in Upper O'Connell Street, have been derelict since the 1970s. You know, it would previously have been known as the Carlton site because it surrounds the former Carlton Cinema there on O'Connell Street, which is no longer there but opposite the Savoy. And It's been a development site that's passed through various hands for a few decades now.
What property purchases and legal settlements are driving MetroLink costs?
It's always been a difficult site. It itself has been in and out of the courts. Back in 2016, a UK property group called Hammerson, they bought it then. It had planning permission at that time for a shopping centre, but they decided they would go elsewhere. That planning permission at that stage was six years old. So they decided they'd go for a more modern shopping centre, a more less enclosed, a more sort of street style shopping centre there. So they put in new planning permission. They put in an application for new planning permission. They were granted that. But then that has ended up in the courts because the Moore Street Preservation Trust. So this site starts on O'Connell Street and goes back into Moore Street.
It's a very big site. So it's on the Arnott side. Exactly, but more up towards the Parnell Square end of O'Connell Street. So yeah, if you were thinking about Henry Street, between Henry Street and Parnell Street, it's a block in there. So Henry Street to Parnell Street and O'Connell Street to Moore Street. It's a big block in there. Now, Transport Infrastructure Ireland isn't taking all of this, but it's taking the O'Connell Street strip because it has planned a station underneath where the Carlton Cinema was. Now, they got planning permission for that. It wasn't contested by Hammerson, as in Hammerson was saying, Grand, we'll go ahead with our development because it's a street level development and you do the bit underground and we'll work all that out.
So that is what everyone thought was going to happen, that there'd be, you know, there may be some land acquisition to access that underground bit. But instead, what Transport Infrastructure Ireland has decided to do is buy half of this entire site, almost half, just over around two and a half acres of that, all on the O'Connell Street frontage, taking it out of the hands of Hammerson.
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