The MetroLink will be “a colossal financial disaster” and is “on track” to cost the State  €23 billion, Michael McDowell has predicted. 

In a briefing delivered to Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien, officials estimated that the project could cost more than three times the €7 billion price tag predicted in 2021. 

On The Pat Kenny Show, Senator McDowell said the Government should cancel the project before construction begins next year. 

“The MetroLink project has grown like topsy,” he said. 

“It started off with a price tag of €3.5 billion; a couple of years later, it had gone up to €5 or €6 billion. 

“Then it hit €9 [and] it was approved by the Government at around that time.

“Later, it’s gone on to €10, €11 billion and now, suddenly, Darragh O’Brien has been told it could cost €23 billion. 

“And this is before not one shovel has been put in the ground, so to speak.” 

The proposed entrance to Tara Street MetroLink. Picture by: MetroLink. 

Senator McDowell added that the project is already poor value for money in comparison to rail projects in other European countries. 

“You have to remember that the far, far longer and more elaborate Elizabeth Line in London was built for £18 billion (€21 billion),” he said. 

“So, we are really moving towards a colossal financial disaster.” 

Need for infrastructure

When it was put to him that Dublin’s Luas cost taxpayers a significant sum to build in the 2000s and is now an indispensable part of the capital’s transport infrastructure, Senator McDowell said the issue needs to be examined “rationally”. 

“This €23 billion has cannibalised the great majority of the public capital programme under the national development plan for a project of this kind,” he said. 

“And what we’re doing is, we’re choosing not to extend the Luas system right across Dublin - which we could do for that kind of money. 

“We are deciding to pour a huge amount of money into one line which goes from Swords to Dublin Airport to the city centre and ends up in a backroad in Ranelagh.” 

Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar signed off on the project on the grounds it was “long overdue”. 

"I think it can help to transform public transport in the streets of Dublin and also help out with air quality and climate action as well,” he said at the time. 

"But it is going to be an expensive project and it is going to take time."

Construction of the MetroLink is due to begin next year.

Main image: Split of an image of the Metro and Michael McDowell. Pictures by: MetroLink and RollingNews.ie