What causes this fudging and binning of projects is simply that farmers, estate agents and those who make money out of road construction have the ear of the Permanent Government.
It is a lot easier to run with five year lead time projects like motorway building that make money for the people mentioned above, than it is to push through any rail project. Rail projects justify themselves when spatial planning concentrates on high density, urban development for an expanding population.
The dirty secret is that any rural Irish town could be redeveloped for an expanding population but it doesn't suit Official Ireland to plan ahead for a population of ten million plus and the sustainable economy that would by necessity result from that.
It is a lot easier to run the place with a periodically shrinking population through death and emigration, because those who have the ear of the Civil Service and most politicians are comfortable enough with things as they are. Hence rural sprawl and urban congestion. Sure its part of what we are
