The Transport Minister has indicated that Dublin's Metrolink will not be delivered on schedule.
Eamon Ryan has said the metro service, which would create a link between Dublin City and Airport, will not be completed by 2027 as laid out in the current National Development Plan.
Minister Ryan says that the 2027 target was "never likely to be achievable."
"The budget forecast for it is much much more than the likely final outcome. There's been a big cost inflation since then, particularly in big infrastructural projects.
"Those indicative numbers weren't ones that we expected to be able to meet," he says.
The Minister's comments come ahead of the publication of an updated National Development Plan in the first week of October.
He says it is critical the Plan follows the National Planning Framework:
"[The National Planning Framework] is about better balanced regional development, compact development and low carbon development and that means really emphasising public transport."
