John O’Dowd: Work has started on 55,000 sleepers and engineering recruitment for phase 3 of rail upgrade

Transcript

00:00My department approved the business case for phase 3 of the Derry to Corain project in November 2022

00:07and issued a letter of offer of £19.7 million to take forward this important project

00:12for the North West. I fully recognise the need to address regional imbalance and better connect our

00:18communities, including those within the North West. This year, therefore, I have ring-fenced

00:23£4.7 million of funding in my budget to ensure the Corain to Derry phase 3 project

00:29proceeds as quickly as possible. The budget allocation is additional to the £5.3 million

00:34that has already been spent on this project. This will allow TransLink to progress this project

00:38as planned and seek to ensure investment in public transport across the entire region.

00:44Work has already commenced on producing the required 55,000 railway sleepers

00:51and on the procurement of technical and engineering teams required

00:57to take the project forward to the main work date at the start of 2026.

01:06Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his answer.

01:10Minister, £4.7 million is a far cry from the £97 million that you told this House

01:18had been approved for this project. You say that the project is proceeding as planned. However,

01:25the project was planned to start in 2025, and this is now the second slippage of 12 months

01:32that we have seen in your first number of months as Minister. Can the Minister outline that this

01:39will proceed as a matter of urgency and that he will do more to get more money for it?

01:44Deputy Speaker, you would be forgiven to think that there is no action in the air,

01:48so you would. If you are going to be a constructive Opposition,

01:53then state the facts. The facts are this. I have been in post four months. I came into post

02:00and I committed to ensuring that this upgrade went ahead. How do you ensure an upgrade goes ahead?

02:05You ring-fence the Budget to make sure it goes ahead. I ring-fence the Budget to make sure it

02:10goes ahead. I am sure you are not as soft as you walk, and you know as well as I do that there is

02:16no three-year Budget in place. You know as well as I do that you can only ring-fence one year

02:21of a Budget. What have I done? I have ring-fenced one year of a Budget. What have I done? I have

02:26made sure this project goes ahead. Do you know what I will do next year? I will ring-fence the

02:30necessary Budget for this project to go ahead.