Cllr accuses Irish Rail and NTA of ‘having no interest in helping local commuters’

Meath councillors’ frustration over the National Transport Authority’s lack of action in improving transport links between M3 Parkway and Dublin spilled over into anger at the monthly Council meeting this week when it was claimed that the NTA had no interest in the county’s progress in transport.

At the December meeting of the council, councillors passed a notice of motion by Fianna Fail Cllr Damien O’Reilly calling for the NTA and Irish Rail to immediately resume full operations at Parkway and Dunboyne stations and reinstate free parking at Dunboyne and that synergies in operating times be created between the Parkway /Maynooth line trains arriving at Broombridge and departing Luas services.

In a reply to the Council this week NTA referred to the call for resumption of full operations from M3 Parkway and Dunboyne stations, writing that the Parkway service was restored to pre-Covid service levels at the same time as all other services on the rail network, with morning and evening peak hour services running directly into Docklands station and a shuttle train running to Clonsilla for connection to Maynooth and Connolly during the off-peak period.

On the call for reinstatement of free parking at Dunboyne, NTA said this was a matter for Irish Rail and on the creation of operating time synergies, it said that whereas rail services operated on fixed timetables, Luas services operated on a frequency/headway basis and, as such, it was not possible to offer precise timed interchange between rail and Luas at Broombridge.

In a separate letter from Irish Rail its chief executive, Jim Meade, said that Irish Rail and Luas services operated as part of wider networks within their networks and, as such, while exact connections could not be guaranteed, the frequency of services on both lines did not generally result in extended waiting times for customers.

Commenting on the correspondence, Cllr O’Reilly said that Irish Rail and NTA had reaffirmed their commitment to having no interest in M3 Parkway.

He said the two State companies running the rail service had “absolutely no interest in helping commuters to get in and out of town, and other commuters who are coming from other ends of Meath through two tolls to use this service”.

It was “absolute lunacy” and, unfortunately, for any of the environmentalists at the meeting, this was public transport at its best.

Independent Cllr Nick Killian said that the correspondence proved that there were “empty words” from the NTA chief executive Anne Graham when she addressed Meath councillors last December.

Fine Gael Cllr Joe Fox said that at the last three meetings with NTA he had tried to persuade them to promote Parkway for commuters from Trim and the changeover at Broombridge “but not one iota has been done about it”.

Fine Gael Cllr Maria Murphy said that when councillors met NTA officials “they had no interest in creating extra traffic from Parkway.