New draft routes for the long-delayed Lucan and Poolbeg Luas tram project are expected to be published by the end of 2026, and early next year, respectively, the Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees heard last week.The delay of the Poolbeg project comes as the new housing it was supposed to serve is at an advanced stage of construction, with many of the new apartments already built.The Lucan Luas is expected to be an extension of the Red Line from the Point Village, while the Lucan Luas has long been planned to be a new route which will share a high-capacity section of the Red Line where it runs between Davitt Road and the Grand Canal before branching in a different direction at both ends of this section.The western end has long been planned to go to Lucan via Liffey Valley, while the eastern section has a number of options into the city centre, as shown in the map below from the 2021 Luas Lucan Feasibility Study.IMAGE: Options for the Lucan Luas in the 2021 Luas Lucan Feasibility Study. Its unclear if any of these options will be used. Lorcan OConnor, chief executive of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), told the committee that the project team are working with the National Transport Authority (NTA) so that the Lucan Luas route does not conflict with the Liffey Valley BusConnects project, which is under construction now or shortly. The original tram route was to run down the Ballymun Road, which is the route that will be dug up by the BusConnects project.The NTA is legally responsible for Luas, and this responsibility is delegated to TII. OConnor said: Turning to light rail, the Luas Finglas railway order has been granted, and the Luas Cork preferred route has been published and is out for public consultation until mid-June. We are working on the emerging preferred routes for Luas Lucan and Luas Poolbeg and expect to bring Lucan to an initial public consultation later this year and Poolbeg early next year.We look forward to commencing planning on further Luas lines as prioritised by the NTA and fulfilling the vision of the NTAs greater Dublin area transport strategy, he said. Shane Moynihan, a Fianna Fail TD for Dublin Mid West, said: I welcome the fact that the Lucan Luas preferred route will be published later on this year. Will Mr OConnor give me a more specific time as to when he thinks we will see that?OConnor replied: Hopefully, before December. I cannot really say more than that, but in the same way we are now at the preferred route status in Cork, that in itself is a very significant milestone because all of a sudden, people can visualise what that might mean broadly speaking, the journey time into the city centre and the connections it creates. We have found, certainly in that initial emerging route consultation, very helpful feedback to allows us to tweak or make changes to enhance the overall project.Giving a broader view of Luas, OConnor said that the use of the tram system in Dublin has grown by nearlu 60% in the last 10 years, and that renewal of the network and trams is needed after over 20 years of service. On the light rail side,Luaspatronage has grown by almost 60% over the past decade, and it continues to grow. TII expects theLuaswill carry approximately 60 million passengers this year, making it the busiest railway in the country. A new timetable was introduced last year, providing much-needed extra capacity on both lines, and further enhancements are planned for next year, said OConnor. In terms of the asset base, TII has been actively strengthening our capability and capacity to deliver a step change in asset investment, which is necessary to protect the performance and reliability of the network, which is now over 20 years old, he said.On this, he continued: TII is working with the NTA to agree increased multi-annual funding and to streamline approval processes for the asset renewal works. There are many benefits, including reduced costs and improved value for money, consequent on evolving to a multi-annual planning and delivery approach for asset management, much like what is in place at the moment for the heavy rail side.He said that the light rail asset base for Luas is valued at approximately 2 billion, and TII is currently spending about 115 million per annum to provide services and maintain the network, and plans to spend another 20 million of capital funding on asset investment and asset renewal works. This compares to ticket revenue in 2026, which is estimated to be in the region of 60 million. OConnor added: Longer-term projections undertaken in 2025 highlight the need for approximately 1.8 billion over the next 20 years in asset life-cycle investment, which equates to about 90 million per annum over the next number of years.Last year, it was revealed that TII has an internal vision for other future Luas routes read more about that here and see the map below. Most of these routes have yet to receive NTA or Government approval.IMAGE: Lucan and Poolbeg Luas routes, along with other possible future Luas routes that have not yet gained NTA or Government approval.