Railway Safety Bill 2026: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01 ============================================================ Emer Currie (FG), Dublin West I welcome the Railway Safety Bill 2026, which strengthens and modernises Ireland's railway safety laws to protect passengers, workers and everyone who relies on the rail network. It gives the Railway Accident Investigation Unit a clear statutory basis in primary legislation and updates the rules for reporting and investigating railway accidents and incidents. It provides for investigations, including into incidents on Luas, future metro lines and heritage railways, ensuring safety legislation keeps pace with Ireland's developing transport network. It modernises alcohol and drug testing for railway staff carrying out safety critical duties, including procedures for taking and analysing samples, gathering evidence and enforcement. It brings railway testing enforcement rules into closer alignment with road safety legislation, supporting a consistent approach across the transport sector, which is positive. All these changes are important because effective investigations help to identify risks and prevent similar accidents while robust testing helps to protect lives. While I have the Minister of State's attention, I will talk about DART+ West. As I am sure he is aware, the people of Dublin West are hugely supportive of DART+ West. It is a hugely important project for our community and it is long awaited. It represents transformative investment in the electrification of our rail network, doubling capacity at peak hours and extending DART services across Dublin 15 and Dublin 7, to Maynooth, the M3 parkway and Kilcock. My understanding is that procurement is advancing with pre-qualification questionnaire notices for the design and build works having been issued in May 2025 and the tender documentation now in its final drafting stage. The compulsory purchase order, CPO, process has commenced with notices having been issued to more than 200 affected landowners on the route. As long as there are no complications, I think I am right in saying the tender documentation for DART+ West is expected to be issued before the end of the year, which is positive, with the objective of early works on the line commencing by the end of 2027 and main works commencing in 2030. Overall, it is a positive project of which I am fully supportive. Now, we have to consider how the project will be delivered on the ground. DART+ West will open doors for commuters, but we must ensure closing level crossings permanently does not close off communities. The Government is doing a great job of putting a faster main transport artery through the area. How can we ensure the local connections keep working? This will be a major construction project. When it is finished, it will transform people's access to local train services, which will change their communities, but the closure of level crossings and therefore of local roads will also change communities and those communities want information. They want information about it sooner rather than later. They are supportive of DART+ West, but they want to be communicated with about the plans for it. In responses to my parliamentary questions, Iarnród Éireann has stated it will continue to engage with local communities as the project progresses towards construction. This engagement will focus on the timing, phasing and potential impacts of the level crossing replacement works and will include advance notification of planned works, regular project updates, consultation with local authorities and elected representatives and targeted engagement with directly affected residents, businesses and community organisations. I ask the Minister of State to encourage Iarnród Éireann to start that engagement now and not to wait until it reaches construction. I will explain why. Clonsilla level crossing is due to close permanently with a new active travel bridge to be implemented. Coolmine level crossing is due to be closed permanently with a new active travel bridge. Ashtown level crossing is due to close permanently, with a new bridge underpass and an active travel bridge. In Clonsilla, a detour is to be implemented with a new bridge at Barberstown, which is a few kilometres away. In Coolmine, local road junctions are to be upgraded to deal with the closure of Coolmine Road and I believe that is happening at Porterstown along the Diswellstown Road to Blanchardstown and Laurel Lodge. I said "I believe" because I had to look for that information from Irish Rail recently and a lot of residents are still in the dark about the plans. In responses I have received, Iarnród Éireann stated that it engaged in extensive public consultation prior to and as part of the railway order. The railway order was submitted in 2022. The consultations happened before that and some of them took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, so the community requires more information at this point to let it know DART+ West is coming, the benefits of DART+ West and about the overall transport management plan and transport strategy for the community. This Bill is about safety. The permanent closure of level crossings is part of the railway order and therefore part of the planning approval for the project. The reason given for the permanent closure of the level crossings was safety. That still needs to be explained to people. I challenged the closure of the level crossings during the public consultations and at the oral hearing on DART+ West. I did so on the basis that two of them are currently operated by attendants who manually close the gates. I asked whether the crossings could instead be upgraded to the highest modern safety standards and retained, at least during peak hours, to maintain the connectivity between communities. The answer was "No". It was "No" even though the capacity is due to double at peak times and I do not know what the capacity or frequency will be at off-peak times. These are the questions people have and Irish Rail, the NTA, Fingal County Council and stakeholders should be available to the community at this point so they can explain to people the benefits - and I think we all support it - but also the plans for its introduction, not in 2027 or 2028, but now. I am not suggesting anything that would delay DART+ West. I actually support measures that would expedite it, but can we please ensure we create the time and space for communities to move with us as we move this project along? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-10-01/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-10-01