Rail lobby group Into The West have launched a campaign to reverse the decision to exclude Fermanagh from plans for the future of rail in Ireland.

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review is a joint north-south initiative designed to plan the development of rail across the island of Ireland over the next 30 years.

The initiative was launched by Ministers north and south of the Border in 2021, with a public consultation held in January 2022. In that consultation, the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area had the highest number of submissions of any council area on the island – over 1,000 – with the neighbouring Donegal and Derry Councils also in the top three for public submissions.

Yet, in July of this year when a draft version of the strategy was released, campaigners were shocked to see that it recommended Fermanagh be left as the only county on the island without any rail.

Chairman of Into The West, Steve Bradley, explained: “At the moment five counties on the island have no rail; Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan. One of the objectives of the All-Island Rail Review is to address regional imbalance and ensure as many towns as possible with a 10,000 plus population are connected to the network.”

He is urging everyone who is “unhappy” at Fermanagh’s exclusion from the all-island plan to have their say by submitting a response to the public consultation. This can be emailed on StrategicRailReview@arup.com on the draft Rail Strategy by Friday, September 29.

A public event will be held on Tuesday, September 26 at 7pm in Fermanagh House and a petition has also been launched on - https://chng.it/kwxfCrVSG7.

In his statement, Mr. Bradley concluded: “No one in Fermanagh should accept being left as the only county on the island without proper infrastructure.

“It’s time for the forgotten county to raise its voice and remind everyone that it is here and it needs to be treated equally,” he said.