Ireland can learn from China for MetroLink and Cork Light Rail, says Jerry Buttimer Minister of State says he has ‘matured’ in his approach to China, whose record on human rights he has criticised

Ireland can learn from China’s rural transport strategy when it comes to expediting delivery of projects such as MetroLink and Cork Light Rail, Minister of State Jerry Buttimer has said. He said Ireland had been behind the curve in developing infrastructure but that China excelled at rolling out big projects. “They’ve developed a rural transport strategy. They’ve developed a light rail and a rail system that is carbon friendly, that is meeting their climate change commitments,” he told The Irish Times. “We’re now looking at our biggest transport project, the MetroLink, at €8 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’ve done over here? And I think it’s 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.” 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’s vice-minister for transport. He is in China representing the Government for St Patrick’s Day on a visit that will also take him to Shanghai and Hong Kong.