The Green Party has welcomed the decision by An Bord Pleanála to approve a Railway Order for Metro North. Speaking as news of the approval emerged, Ciarán Cuffe, Minister of State for Sustainable Transport, said: "Today's decision is an important step forward for Dublin. Metro North can change the shape of Dublin for the better over the next century. 4,000 direct construction jobs will be created as well as 2,000 indirect jobs during the construction period.

"Now is the time to invest in public transport that will serve the capital city well into the next century. Metro North will run from St. Stephen's Green to the airport and on to Swords. The line will have a final design capacity of roughly 20,000 passengers per hour, based on one 90 metre train every two minutes.

"We face the twin challenges of climate change and energy security in the decades ahead. It is crucial that we take a long-term view of our public transport and planning needs. In our towns and cities, public transport will have an increasingly important role to play as our communities and workplaces are located closer to rail and bus corridors.

"Examining a map of Dublin, many residents in north Dublin have no rail option. For Fingal, the country’s fastest growing county, a fixed rail connection linking Swords, the airport, Ballymun, the Mater Hospital and the city centre, makes sense. Together with Dart Underground, Metro North will be a vital backbone to an integrated public transport system for Dublin encompassing commuter rail, light rail and bus.

"One of the aims of Smarter Travel, the Government’s transport policy is to reduce the number of car-based work commuting trips. With annual passenger journeys projected at over 30 million, Metro North will play its part in this. A failure to balance the investment in road infrastructure with comparable investment in high quality public transport will see a return to a gridlocked M50 in years to come.

"Metro North, a vital piece of infrastructure; ten years in the planning, will benefit the city of Dublin and its inhabitants for generations to come. It represents integrated transport and land-use planning.

Daniel Burnham -the American planner who produced the Chicago Plan in the nineteenth century once said: “Make no little plans, they have no courage to stir men’s blood and probably will not be realised. Aim high in life and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency… think big.”

Now is the time to aim high for Dublin."