What Do We Want? A Rail Link to Dublin Airport! When Do We Want It? About Ten Years Ago!

Anyone who has spent time sitting in traffic in a coach, taxi or car travelling to the city centre from Dublin Airport has probably had the same thought at one point or another - why oh why is there no rail link? My travels have been screwed by various events at Croke Park, the RDS, Lansdowne Road (it will never be the Aviva Stadium to those with a soul when it opens!) and a recent SR Technics protest on O'Connell Street. It took me almost two hours to get to Ballsbridge a couple of years ago because of Paul McCartney. One man brought Dublin to a standstill! Other notable events that have hindered my travels include an Ireland-Brazil football match and a fireworks display along the Liffey. However, the latest event to put the icing on the cake was.... the Flora Women's Mini Marathon which took place on Monday.

The graph below shows the top 25 airports in Europe based on passenger numbers in 2008. Airports without a rail link are in red.


So, of the 25 airports just two are without a rail link - Dublin and Palma. It's no surprise the latter has no rail link as it is primarily a holiday airport where arriving passengers are whisked off to their various resorts in air-conditioned coaches or hire cars. Dublin is Ireland's capital city and main international gateway.

Of the old so called "EU 15" states the only capital cities without airport rail links are Dublin, Lisbon, Helsinki and Luxembourg. Plans are afoot to commence construction of a rail link in Helsinki this year, even though it was served by 13.4 million passengers in 2008 (57% of Dublin's figure). For the record, last year Lisbon was served by 13.6 million passengers and Luxembourg just 1.7 million. Dublin was served by 23.5 million. Even smaller airports such as Newcastle (5m) and Pisa (4m) have rail links.

There has been plenty of talk in the last few years about a metro line to Dublin Airport but as usual activity has been close to zero. This should come as no surprise as Ireland has never been known for its infrastuctural foresight. Two-laned M50 anyone?

A simple rail link to Connolly station, which would link up with the DART and LUAS, would be a start. All that needs to be done really is to build a spur off the Belfast rail line. Then not only could Dublin Airport be served from Dublin city centre but from Belfast too. Rail links to various other towns around Ireland could possibly follow and eventually eliminate the need for some domestic air links, particularly the government-funded PSO routes.

One would think that, as part of the coalition government, the Green Party would be pushing the idea of the rail link more, but then again they have been pretty weak to date. After all, the number of buses on the streets of Dublin has been cut. I also recommend they take a trip to Amsterdam and Copenhagen to see efficient public transport in action along with proper cycle lanes.

One could also argue that the last thing the government should be spending money on is an expensive infrastructural project like a rail link. However, the thing is......it should have been built YEARS ago.