The spiralling projected cost of the Metrolink brings the NCH to mind

Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

• It was revealed this week that the planned Dublin Metrolink could cost up to €19 billion. The last Metrolink estimates from 2022 suggested €9.5 billion as the midpoint of a “credible” cost range of between €7.16 billion and €12.25 billion. The increasing cost echoes the National Children’s Hospital and its umpteen budget increases – a saga that damaged the public’s trust in the State’s ability to deliver large necessary projects in a timely and cost-effective manner.

• The latest data from the Climate Change Advisory Council suggests the Government’s target of 400,000 heat-pump installations by 2030 is all but impossible at this stage. They are calling for a twentyfold increase in the pace of delivery, plus a surge in general home retrofits.

• The German chancellor Friedrich Merz was welcomed to Dublin by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Tuesday where he delivered a speech on the need for a more austere approach to the common EU budget. The decision to speak entirely in German was not helped by malfunctioning translation devices given out to the Taoiseach and those present.

• The State has been urged to buy the lands of former Bessborough mother and baby home to create memorial park. This comes after planning permission was granted for more than 100 apartments on the Cork site.

• And more than 300 former members of the Christian Brothers will be summonsed through an advertisement in a national newspaper. The move was prompted by the fact that the Christian Brothers is an unincorporated association, meaning there is no legal entity that can be directly sued by people taking it to court.

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