[Article] SBP - Metro North bid tenders to be received this week
 

Business Post (not online yet) has a small piece stating the 4 bidders are submitting bids this week.

Cost is expected to be in the €3-€4bn range and raising finance will be very hard.

And in todays Irish Times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...242083966.html

Anyone see enda kenny's opinion letter in the Irish Times sometime last week? Absolutely shocking, he was ranting on about what he'd do if he were Taoiseach. He said that he'd immediately shelve Metro North as many current public infastructure projects that current government are going ahead with are going to further damage the economy under the current economic climate...almost makes Fianna Fail look attractive again, Kenny's a gob****e in my opinion. 7000 guaranteed jobs will be created in constructing the metro. Construction's going to last what? 5 years? we'll be out of the recession(hopefully) by then and with a much more effective public transport system in Dublin. Wasn't a major mistake in the last recession not investing more heavily in large public transport projects?



*Edit* actually here's his opinion piece if anyone wants to read it:http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...241892788.html

Agreed, I was quite disappointed by that part of Indakenny's piece. Delay Metro North (while supporting the Western Rail Corridor all portions) ... my opinion of Fine Gael just went down about 6 points. :(

Ditto. I've never been a huge fan but I voted for them in the last election because they've got to be better than the current shower. Writing off a vital piece of infrastructure just dropped them to the bottom of the pile.

Never had time for Enda

Metro North is the ultimate get out of jail card. Up to 7000 jobs in the construction/engineering/architecture business. And state pays nothing until the day it opens in 2015. Prices are down up to 20% so the PPP availability payments are down. Hopefully we can find 150 million a year in 2015,

The accrued benefit to the economy by having metro north is going to be a very large number, much bigger than the PPP availability cost. Irish Rail is worth about 1 billion per annum

Hmmm, fares alone don't bring in all that much - 40,000 passengers per day x 365 days x €2 = €29,200,000 (of course, if its 80,000 passengers per day x 365 days x €2 = €58,400,000 - a much nicer figure)

There are of course other revenue streams - section 49 development contributions, advertising, mobile phone site hire (the existing networks aren't able to penetrate through 30m of rock and soil), retail oppurtunities, car parking fees.

Bruton would do much better as taoiseach than kenny, its a pity FG dont seem to have another Finance minister as experienced as Richard Bruton.

The €770 million price tag for Luas was always intended as a capital investment and the running costs would be covered by the fare box ie no subsidy.

I think its the same with Metro North. Its an investment that is never expected to pay back its capital cost but rather cover operating costs plus more.

Indirect social costs are different though along as the savings in congestion etc.

Of course. The IDA submission is rather brief, but their main point is that MN will improve quality of life.

I can see it kickstarting development (albeit not at the same rate) in many areas in Fingal.

I wish FF would point out the benefits of actually going ahead with it.

"Leading" "economist" Sean Barrett called for Metro and Interconnector to be dropped from proposed capital spend on Morning Ireland.

Wouldn't pay any attention to him, he doesn't even understand that Metro North is not a capital spend in the first place

I know that, but given that the country is up the Khyber and politicians are weak and useless at the best of time, the public percerption is the most important thing at the moment and fancy underground trains are not going to win FF any votes in the short term :(

Personally, I don't see that Metro North is all that vital a piece of national infrastructure. It certainly doesn't compare to the Interconnector.

There are cheaper ways of connecting to the airport and Swords and it's questionable if Dublin's northside has a population density that can justify a metro rather than a LUAS.

PPPs are a scam. They're just a way of keeping borrowing off the national balance sheet. In some ways they are to infrastructure what CDSs are to the housing market.

The arguments that it will spur development in Fingal carry as much weight as arguments that the WRC will bring development in the West. There will be no development in this country for the next 5 years.

If the metro was only around for five years, that would be a valid argument but for something that should be operating in 100 years, what difference does the next five years make?

Likewise, if the metro is built, there's nothing to suggest large parts of north Dublin couldn't be rebuild to higher density. High density doesn't get built before mass transit - it get built with or after it.

I'm no fan of PPP's due the overall cost being greater but

No risk to the taxpayer, everything is fixed up front
Solves a massive problem on the Northside and will probably promote development up there, thus generating employment
Cost spread over 25 years as a non capital cost
Doesn't impact on the national debt
If the service doesn't meet the contract standards, the PPP payment is reduced

Interconnector is going to be PPP as well

Much as I would like to see these projects go ahead, there are really big problems related ulitmately to the state of the public finances.

Sure, there is no up-front cost, but there is a future liability, and capital markets in their present mood are going to be very sensitive to this. In particular, the developers/private partners are going to have to borrow several billions from banks or bond markets: how do you rate their chances? How high wil the borrowing costs be?

PPP puts what is effectively a Public Debt (i.e.liability) off-balance sheet i.e.the thing does not appear in the published National Debt total. Putting stuff off balance sheets is what has got the world into such a mess recently!

With regard to any calls by posters here about which project should go ahead at the expense of another etc then remember that metro North is at the most advanced stage of any of the other large PPP projects like Metro West, the Interconnector and Lucan Luas. The likes of the IC, MW and Line F would be at least 1 year if not 2 away from An Bord Pleanala which is where MN is at now.

If they were to delay anything they should start with the least advanced in my opinion and simply for the fact that we need a large infrastructure project to kick start employment and the Metro north is the only one that can start any time soon.

*When I mean delay I mean delay construction. Planning and design should proceed as scheduled. Its small change when it comes to construction.