The Right Route
Irish Times Editorial
29 August 2006

Barely a week goes by without Minister for Transport Martin Cullen or his Minister of State Pat "The Cope" Gallagher opening a fresh stretchof motorway or inaugurating a new rail project - all under the banner of Transport 21, the Government's €34.4 billion investment programme. This frenetic activity is only natural because, as noted by the first independent analysis of the 10-year programme published yesterday in The Irish Times, politicians like to be seen opening "big ticket projects".

However, since Transport 21 was first unveiled with a fanfare last November, taxpayers have been kept in the dark about the economic case for every element of it - not least the justification for two metro lines. According to Mr Cullen, the figures will be released "on a project-by-project basis. Once the tender is chosen and the price is the price, then it's a matter of being open".

Prof Austin Smyth, who compiled the analysis, is quite right when he says that in most other countries when such programmes are announced it is possible to form an opinion about the efficacy of the expenditure, based on "accurate statements of costs and full quantification of benefits". No such supporting documentation was presented by the Government; indeed, as Irish Times political correspondent Mark Hennessy wrote at the time: "Never in the history of public transport has so much been promised by so many ministers backed up by so little paperwork". That is why this newspaper has appealed, in the public interest, to Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly against the Department of
Transport's refusal to respond to legitimate queries about various elements of Transport 21, notably the justification for choosing metro as a solution.

As Prof Smyth has said, even the Metro North line on its own will cost "billions", and it is entirely unclear why the Government decided to run with it when Iarnród Éireann had already put forward a much more cost-effective proposal to serve Dublin airport with a rail spur from the Belfast line. Yet without the public being told anything at all about the economic case for Metro North, the Railway Procurement Agency is moving to a final decision on its "preferred option" for the alignment. What other EU member state would proceed in such a fashion
with a major public project of this magnitude? The answer is none. The
Government's approach smacks of the "command and control" systems that
once operated in the Soviet Union and its satellites. It is simply unacceptable that those who will foot the bill are not being told how it has been counted.