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

He was asked by Mark H. Durkan how much funding had been allocated to phase 3 of the railway line.

Mr. O'Dowd said: “My Department approved the business case for phase 3 of the Derry to Coleraine project in November 2022 and issued a letter of offer for £97.7m to take forward that important project for the North West.

“I fully recognise the need to address regional imbalance and to better connect our communities, including those that are in the North West. This year, therefore, I have ring-fenced £4.7m in my budget to ensure that the Coleraine to Derry phase 3 project proceeds as quickly as possible.

“That budget allocation is additional to the £5.3m that has already been spent on the project. It will allow Translink to progress the project as planned and to ensure that there is investment in public transport across the entire region.

“Work has commenced on producing the required 55,000 railway sleepers for the project and on the procurement of the technical and engineering teams that are required to take the project forward to the main works start date of 2026.”

Last month Mr. O’Dowd, in response to an Assembly Question from Mr. Durkan, advised construction work was scheduled in two phases: February-May 2027 for physical intervention work on 6 miles of track; and April-June 2028 to facilitate ballast cleaning of 14 miles of track.

This prompted Steve Bradley, Into The West chair, to say the lobby had ‘lost all confidence that this work will begin at all before the Minister’s term in office ends in May 2027’.

At Stormont on Monday, Mr. Durkan, remarked ‘£4.7m is a far cry from the £97m that you told the House had been approved for the project’.

"You say that the project is proceeding as planned, but it was planned to start in 2025, and this is the second 12-month slippage that we have seen in your first months as Minister.

"Can you say that phase 3 will proceed as a matter of urgency and that you will do more to get more money for it?” he asked.

Mr. O'Dowd replied: “Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be forgiven for thinking that there is an election in the air.”

He stated: “If you are going to be a constructive Opposition, state the facts. The facts are that I have been in post for four months and that, when I came into post, I committed to ensuring that the upgrade would go ahead.

"How do you ensure that an upgrade goes ahead? You ring-fence the budget for it. I ring-fenced the budget to make sure that it can go ahead.

"I am sure that you are not as soft as you walk. You know as well as I do that there is no three-year Budget in place, and you know as well as I do that you can ring-fence only one year of a budget. What have I done? I have ring-fenced one year of a budget. What else have I done? I have made sure that the project will go ahead.”

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