West=On=Track -News

Rebuilding the rail network

Letter to The Irish Times, Jan 11th 2010 

Madam,

Being among the last of the 180 people who donated blood in the Claremorris clinic last Wednesday evening, I happened to meet the driver who was bringing these donations back to Dublin on a near impassible N60.

Should weather conditions worsen, railways will be the only way to get these life-saving supplies to the patients in counties Dublin, Louth and Carlow, where supplies had come under pressure due to the inclement weather.

Keynesian economics argued that in times like these, government should invest in infrastructure and particularly capital intensive infrastructure projects. I welcome the rebuilding of the Western Rail Corridor. For more reasons than ever, the rebuilding of this railway between Limerick, Galway, Mayo and Sligo must be a priority, together with Athlone-Mullingar, Dublin-Clonsilla and any other railway line that remains intact in Ireland today.

Creating thousands of jobs, boosting tourism, helping students and commuters, and saving lives seems like very solid economics to me.

Yours, etc,
Michael Kean,
Ashford Court,
Claremorris
Co Mayo