2026-04-30

99. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for Transport if he is aware that the DART will not be operational again this May bank holiday weekend for the VHI mini-marathon, an event that attracts up to 30,000 participants each year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31200/26]

I thank the Deputy for the question. As she knows, essential maintenance is being carried out and there is inconvenience for people, but I will put this in context. The majority of maintenance works on the rail network take place overnight or in a way that will see little or no disruption to services. In some instances, however, this disruption is unfortunately unavoidable, such as for the upcoming May and June bank holiday weekends. I genuinely understand that while it is frustrating, it is an essential part of maintaining our rail network. To support the maintenance of our rail network, we are investing close to €2.1 billion over the period 2026 to 2030. This year alone we will invest over €350 million in resilience and upgrading of tracks and network. The annual investment will increase year on year to almost €465 million by 2030. Disruption to services occurs when Iarnród Éireann is replacing or improving essential infrastructure like tracks, bridges, signalling and overhead lines or assisting third parties with major works. We do this to ensure that, at peak times when more people are travelling, the network is robust and we will not see outages in the system. The company is also currently engaged in the multi-annual programme of overhead line renewal and track renewal across the DART network. Iarnród Éireann chooses bank holiday weekends to undertake projects of significant scale. The extra weekend day allows them to achieve more progress more efficiently, avoiding impacts across multiple weekends and weekday passengers. It is standard international railway practice for bank holidays to be used in this way. I know that when events like the VHI mini-marathon are on, which will see approximately 30,000 people coming in, additional bus services are put on. However, I will be honest and say that, that looking through the details, the buses will serve major stations and not every station. I think that is an area that can and should be improved on. People get that we have to maintain our lines and make sure that they are safe and upgraded. I will come back with more information during supplementary.

Approximately 30,000 women take part in the VHI mini-marathon. It is the world's largest all-women 10 km race. It raises approximately €10 million per year for charities and it has raised over €255 million since it began. This is a hugely important event. Tens of thousands of women and their families participate in it and it raises money that charities across the country simply cannot do without. People understand the need for track maintenance, know it has to happen and appreciate that days that are quieter, like Sundays, are the ones for maintenance. However, on weekends where we have such a major event it does not make sense to stop the DART from running when there are so many people who need it. I ask the Minister to reconsider this policy.

This is an operational matter. I do not direct Iarnród Éireann as to when it maintains its lines. I recognise there will unquestionably be inconvenience to people. Bank holiday weekends allow engineers to work continuously for 76 hours on the line and get extensive work done that does not have to be spread over other weekends. Fortunately, there is very rarely a weekend where there is not a major event on in this country and in our capital city. That could be sport, concerts, mini-marathons or whatever. That is good because it is a vibrant city and a lot of people use the city. DART services will operate on the southern line from Greystones into the city. It is the northern line that will be impacted. There are additional bus services put on that line. During the June bank holiday further work will happen. All those details are pre-announced and they are all up on the website. It is also advertised that there will be disruption when lines are closed for maintenance. There is no easy way of doing this. There is only so much work you can get done during night-time hours because we are running earlier and later trains, so the gap for maintenance at night is shorter. That is why if we can get 76 hours of continuous work done, that is banked and we do not have to do it over successive weekends.

I thank the Minister. I understand, and everyone understands, there is no easy way of doing it but there are certain weekends where the demand is so high it warrants running the DART. Perhaps it could just be for that individual day and the works could be done at other points in the weekend, which is what used to happen. Last year there were no additional Luas services provided on the weekend for the VHI mini-marathon and no additional bus services. I have been contacted by people who ended up arriving late to the entry point and were not allowed run the marathon. This is hugely disruptive to people. Just because there is low commuter demand on a bank holiday weekend does not mean there is low public demand. These are public transport services, not just commuter services. Relying on bank holiday weekends, especially ones when there are large-scale events, is the wrong way to go about these works. There has to be a way of doing this and managing this better.

There is significant advance notice given. We need to improve the additional services that are there. I can tell the Deputy there are additional bus services this weekend serving the northern line. There is no easy answer to this. Lines need to be upgraded. Overhead lines, railway tracks and embankments need to be worked on. That all needs to happen. I cannot tell the Deputy we can avoid doing work on the May or June bank holidays. You can get a significant amount of work done on a continuous basis. That is the advantage to the workers who are carrying out that essential work. I appreciate it is disruptive and I take the point. I will bring the Deputy's feedback to the company to see if there is a way of just using the Monday. Large events are taken into account too but fortunately there is rarely a weekend that there are not major events in the capital city. I take the point the mini-marathon is a staple in our national calendar and I will bring that back.