The announcement of the third All-Island Rail Review has been met with overwhelming support from politicians and tireless advocacy groups such as West on Track. Many people in Mayo welcome the opportunity to travel to Galway by rail for the first time in a generation. However, it is important to note that the East Mayo Greenway Committee now has plenty of reason to direct anger at Mayo County Council’s inaction.

The dream of linking Claremorris to Collooney was always a long shot. It is not even mentioned as a possibility in the next 30 years by Irish rail reviews. Mayo will not have double track, so there will be restrictions on frequency and speed.

Most damning from a Mayo perspective is that it will be possible to travel by rail to an airport in Shannon, while Ireland West Airport has been left out of the strategic review entirely, which will not be seen until 2050.

There is again a lack of vision when it comes to balanced regional development. Shannon gets a spur, as do Dublin and Belfast airports, but the western part is left out.

Attention for the future of the railway in Mayo should be concentrated on removing unmanned crossings. Overpasses and underpasses should be created to eliminate potential hazards to motorists and pedestrians, increasing the speed of travel and the level of safety.

The Claremorris-Athenry line is shovel ready and clearance work has already begun. However, there is no real excitement for many when our international airport has been forgotten again.

For the people of East Mayo who will be without a railway, now is the time for councilors at Mayo County Council to support the East County Greenway Committees.

They should join their counterparts in Sligo and Galway who have been fighting this cause for decades.

Mayo councilors have clung to the hope that the entire rail corridor will be reopened, linking Connaught’s two biggest towns. This All-Island Rail Review has been billed as ambitious, but the failure to exclude the northern part of the western rail corridor will have long-term effects on communities in the eastern part of this county.

The shelving of the N17 motorway upgrade brought bad news for commuters in Connaught. The double whammy of neglecting the rail network will only drive investment away from the West, the opposite of what balanced regional development was meant to achieve.

Politicians who praise the reopening of the Western Rail Corridor are only misleading their constituents. We still have a long way to go to reach the levels of the 1800s when Ireland had the densest rail network in Europe, much of which we dismantled.