The as yet unofficial prospectus suggests that Ireland, come the year 2010 or "a little" later, will no longer be an island nation. A not-so-little £14 billion tunnel will connect us with Britain. In fact, we are talking about the world's longest underwater tunnel. The 56-mile Dublin-Holyhead shuttle link, embedded into the floor of the Irish Sea, will make it possible to reach London within three-and-a-half hours - and Paris in just seven hours - according to its proposers, British engineering consultants, the Symonds Group.
We are talking about a link almost twice the length of the Channel tunnel. As with that project, it entails twin-track rails. They would carry shuttle trains loaded with cars between Holyhead and Dublin on a 45-minute journey. The project, which could be the last link in connecting the whole of Europe by train, has received encouraging responses from financiers, a company spokesman said yesterday. First contact with the Irish Government is due this week. A quarter of the construction costs would have to be met by the Irish and British governments, and the project would also require EU backing.
Before the "ground-breaking plan" (Symonds's description) is dismissed as a means of giving the Celtic tiger a cough from which it would not be likely to recover, it should be said that tunnelling techniques have progressed even from the recent nightmare days of the Channel tunnel. That project was estimated to cost £5 billion and ended up costing £10 billion.
Undaunted by such memories, the British Department of Transport said it would give the scheme "serious consideration", while a Department of Public Enterprise spokesman said it would look at the proposal. Anything "providing easier access to European markets" was important, he said.
The company's regional managing director, Mr Gareth Davies, said the project could create 10,000 jobs. "The Ireland link will be an enormous engineering challenge. But it is a viable, practical and technically sound project. We have the knowledge and the techniques to tunnel to a new length and a new depth."
The company says the tunnel would be built as a "tube", with concrete sections towed out to sea and laid in a trench. The trench would be covered with sand and rock. It would take six years to complete and could be open by 2010. Some amateur economists prefer to think it will be open in time for the Olympic Games coming to Dublin.
This method of construction is cheaper than drilling beneath the seabed. It was developed by the company while working on the Oresund link between Sweden and Denmark, due to open in 2000.
The 31-mile Channel tunnel took seven years to build using huge £25 million boring machines, advancing up to 75 metres a day. Drilling through often unknown territory meant inevitable delays and cost overruns. Whether because of financial innocence or absolute faith in its technology, the Symonds Group dismisses comparisons. Of immediate concern is the trifling (given a £14 billion brief) matter of an £8 million feasibility study which it wants the governments to fund.
