Mullan calls on Minister to deliver rail upgrade

The Foyle MLA said: “I wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure on January 17 to ask her plans to deliver Phase 3 on the Derry to Coleraine line, to outline her Department’s plans for a direct line from Derry to Dublin and to carry out a feasibility study for a Derry to Sligo route.”

Nichola Mallon was appointed as Minister for Infrastructure on January 11. Speaking on her first day in office, the Minister said that she was “looking forward to developing new proposals to address regional imbalance and support a thriving region where people want to live, work and invest.”

Whilst welcoming the Minister’s response in relation to tackling regional imbalance the Foyle MLA also called on the Minister to give assurances that the commitments already given by her Department to start the Phase 3 upgrade in 2021 should go ahead on that timeline.

Ms Mullan said that: “After years of historical under-investment, improved rail links would greatly help transform the economic fortunes of the North West, while providing a more sustainable mode of travel.”

The Foyle MLA also urged the Minister to start work with her counterpart in the Irish government “to explore the possibility of expanding rail lines into the Northwest, while improving on the ones that currently exist.”