{"id":348899,"date":"2026-03-16T10:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T10:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348899\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T10:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T10:57:07","slug":"ireland-can-learn-from-china-for-metrolink-and-cork-light-rail-says-jerry-buttimer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348899\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland can learn from China for MetroLink and Cork Light Rail, says Jerry Buttimer \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland can learn from China<\/a>\u2019s rural transport strategy when it comes to expediting delivery of projects such as MetroLink<\/a> and Cork Light Rail, Minister of State Jerry Buttimer<\/a> has said. He said Ireland had been behind the curve in developing infrastructure but that China excelled at rolling out big projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve developed a rural transport strategy. They\u2019ve developed a light rail and a rail system that is carbon friendly, that is meeting their climate change commitments,\u201d he told The Irish Times. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now looking at our biggest transport project, the MetroLink, at \u20ac8 billion and looking at Cork Light Rail. How can we deliver it quicker, faster, recognising that we have a new planning regulation and see where can we learn from what they\u2019ve done over here? And I think it\u2019s something we have to be ambitious about, we have to be in a way very determined, very focused, because we need to move on infrastructure and the Chinese are exemplars in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buttimer, who is a Minister at the Department of Transport and the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, was speaking in Beijing after a meeting with China\u2019s vice-minister for transport. He is in China representing the Government for St Patrick\u2019s Day<\/a> on a visit that will also take him to Shanghai and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Buttimer has been a long-standing critic of China\u2019s human rights record and a supporter of self-determination in Taiwan and he is a member of the International Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), which is viewed in Beijing as a hostile group. He told The Irish Times he supports the Government\u2019s commitment to the One China policy and that as a Minister, he is no longer active in Ipac.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been critical of China, but I have had many positive engagements with leaders who\u2019ve come to Cork, come to the Oireachtas and with the ambassador in Dublin, and I would say I\u2019ve matured in my approach. I recognise we live in a world that is not as black and white as maybe I thought it was or should be, and as a consequence of engagement, I hope I\u2019ve brought people on a journey as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of the Oireachtas, we\u2019re free to be part of friendship groups, and as a Minister, you obviously don\u2019t become part of any group any more, and I haven\u2019t been engaged in that at all because it\u2019s not part of what you can do as a Minister. You\u2019re separate from the Oireachtas, in terms of friendship groups and organisations. I think part of it was about the human rights piece and about the whole way, as a member of the LGBT community, I felt we needed to be a part of a movement to bring change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland can learn from China\u2019s rural transport strategy when it comes to expediting delivery of projects such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[114,61,60,158956,29093,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-348899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-jerry-buttimer","12":"tag-metrolink","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}