I spoke to Paddy Murphy at the MRSI Show last month. He said the following:
The 071 class would go into production mid-2025
The MkIII coaches would enter production around the same time
The 071 class would come in the same range of liveries as the initial run except in different numbers
The 071 class would have various electronic upgrades similar to the recent run of 141/181s.
In addition, the 071 would have a modification to the manual parking brake wheel
Irish Rail removed the grab handles on the front of the 071 cabs when they were repurposed for freight (current slate grey livery).
In order to reflect this deletion on the models, the cabs for the current freight livery had to be retooled otherwise holes would be left in the plastic.
This retooling translated into delay.
No unit price has been decided yet owing to inflation in the €Euro.