A new Luas line connecting Finglas to Dublin City Centre will be ‘transformative’ for the capital, the Transport Minister has said.

Eamon Ryan is today seeking Cabinet approval to accelerate plans for the new line, with hopes it could now be completed by 2031.

Under the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy, the line is currently due to be delivered within 12 years.

Should Minister Ryan receive Cabinet approval this morning however, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) will seek planning permission to deliver it within seven years.

Transformative

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Minister Ryan said the plan is part of the "massive" public transport expansion that is needed to make Dublin city "work".

“It will be transformative for the 60,000 people living along the route - in Finglas particularly - and it will improve their journey time from the city centre from about 45 minutes down to 30 minutes," he said.

"We need the same in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick, and we’ve to be careful that our other cities and towns across the country also develop."

Trusting the government

Minister Ryan also said the lack of trust in Government regarding transport infrastructure "has to change".

"We’ve shown in building roads that we can actually deliver on-time and in-budget," Minister Ryan said.

"We rolled out a motorway project over two decades which actually was delivered, by international comparison, at relatively low cost.

"We need to do the same with public transport."

'Too stop start'

Minister Ryan claimed the reason we're not seeing on-time and in-budget developments with Irish public transport is because the system is too "stop start".

"It’s because you don’t have a whole series of projects so that the people bidding for it – the building companies, the construction companies – if they know there’s several projects coming that allows them scale up, so if one gets stuck in planning, then another fits in," he said.

"There’s huge progress about to come and already coming in Dublin.

"We will build the metro – we need the metro.

"We will triple the DART service and that’s through planning already, we now just need to build."

Outside of Dublin

The Minister added that his department will continue building BusConnects corridors in the coming years.

Looking outside of Dublin, the Minister said public consultation on Cork's 'light rail' has been delayed for "some time" and that it needs to happen "now".

He also added that Galway will thrive "on the back of the light rail".

Minister Eamon Ryan on Newstalk Breakfast 22/10/2024 Image: Bauer Media