Transport plan 'a Government sham'
The Government’s massive 10-year transport plan is an elaborate sham and a media stunt by the Cabinet to get out of current difficulties, the Dáil heard today.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern came under sustained criticism by Opposition TDs over the €34.4bn blueprint which promises more Dart, Luas and suburban rail services as well as two Metro lines for Dublin.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton demanded to see individual price tags for each project so that taxpayers could see if they are getting value for money.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte dismissed the plan as a media stunt and accused Transport Minister Martin Cullen of telling ’blatant untruths’ over how many buses CIE wanted.
Dismissing critics of the blueprint as whingers and begrudgers, Mr Ahern insisted amid stormy exchanges that projects were fully costed but estimates could not be made public as they were commercially-sensitive.
Mr Bruton, deputising for party leader Enda Kenny said to Mr Ahern: “You are not willing to give any costings to show that the €25,000 per household will yield value for money.
“Every time there is a difficult issue coming along, you and your Government produce a plan.
“We had a health plan from Micheal Martin to end waiting lists and where has it got us. We had an electoral voting plan from Minister Cullen and it’s rusting in the warehouses. We had a computing plan for the health services and it’s just lying there because it can’t compute.
“We had a decentralisation plan and we now find that less than 5% of the jobs will be moved within the scheduled time.
“You are looking time and time again for a card to get you out of jail.
“The public don’t want plans, they want delivery.”
“This was a media event and a stunt and you’re making a very bad job of defending it,” added Pat Rabbitte.
Mr Bruton asked Mr Ahern why he was denying specific detail on projects to the public and the taxpayers who will be paying for most of this plan.
“Any plan worth its salt should have that included,” he said.
He said that any previous big spending Government plan had been a substantial document rather than the slim volume that yesterday’s plan produced.
“We have to accept it on faith from ministers that detailed due dilignce and careful scrutiny has gone into this plan.”
But Mr Ahern said: “All of the agencies and the department costed the plan as per the normal contracting arrangements.
He said they had used the same estimation procedures that had brought 19 of 22 public infrastructure projects in on target and under budget.
Completion dates had also been assigned to each specific project.
He said that if the department were to detail the cost estimates of all the projects, it would be showing commercially-sensitive information to prospective tenderers.
The Department of Finance had been provided with all the estimates, he added.
Mr Bruton replied: “Many of (National Development Plan) projects ran massively over cost and it embarrassed the government and so the government is not willing to commit itself to any costings.
“The public is asking themselves how can they have any more confidence in this plan than the previous one?”
