Mr. Frank Allen:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the invitation. I am pleased to be here this morning having been nominated by the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, to serve as the chairperson of Iarnród Éireann. My professional background is in infrastructure finance. I studied at University College Cork and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I worked for many years at the World Bank for the International Finance Corporation financing infrastructure in developing and transitioning economies. Afterwards, I returned to Ireland and worked in infrastructure finance for KBC Bank at the Irish Financial Services Centre, IFSC. In 2002, when the Railway Procurement Agency, RPA, was established to take responsibility for Luas and other projects, I was appointed as its first chief executive. During my ten years there, we launched Luas and extended it to the docklands, Cherrywood and Citywest, and we worked on other projects such as developing the leap card system. Since leaving the RPA in 2012, I have continued to work mostly in infrastructure finance, advising a range of clients internationally and in Ireland. I do much work in Asia, including in Vietnam and Indonesia, and in Jordan dealing with problems of urban congestion and particularly how mobilising the private sector to invest in and operate public transport can address infrastructure gaps there.

I have worked on projects in renewable energy and sustainability in Ireland. I chair the board of Depaul Ireland, which is a homeless agency.

In 2013, the then Minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar, invited me to join the board of Iarnród Éireann. I was very pleased to do that and it has been a great privilege to be on that very committed and dedicated board. The Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, reappointed me to the board last year and I have been chair of the audit and risk group. It has been a privilege to work with Mr. Phil Gaffney, who was an outstanding chairman and retired in July. That brings me here.

Iarnród Éireann plays a critical role in providing mobility in urban areas in Ireland and in offering an attractive alternative to private cars on intercity routes. Passenger numbers in 2017 will reach approximately 45 million, which is a record level. We are very pleased with that. As the economy has recovered and there has been more congestion on major routes, we are pleased that people are availing of the option to use public transport. Iarnród Éireann provides a very safe and comfortable service which we are very pleased to be able to provide. Iarnród Éireann's safety record is exceptionally high by international standards and that is paramount in everything the company does.

I believe that, in the future, railways will play an even more critical role in mobility as we move to a low-carbon economy. That is particularly the case for electrified transport in the greater Dublin area. Apart from that, Iarnród Éireann can get people out of cars and on to public transport in large numbers and it is the job of the board to ensure that we have the infrastructure, resources and skills to meet that growing need.

While I have that very positive message this morning, we are concerned about aspects of the infrastructure. During the recession, maintenance was deferred because of a shortage of money. That deferral of maintenance does not compromise safety but it results in temporary speed restrictions in some places and in the future we may struggle to provide the same quality of service to a growing number of passengers. That is a major concern for us. It would be bad news for us if we lost competitiveness in journey times, as well as being bad news for congestion and for how we, as a society, would meet our commitments on sustainability and climate change. The scale of the problem with deferred maintenance has been recognised. The National Transport Authority, with input from Iarnród Éireann, provided a rail review which was published last year. That rail review indicated that, because of the deferred maintenance during the recession, we would really need to spend another increment of €103 million per annum for five years to catch up with the deferred maintenance and make sure that we can continue to provide competitive journey times, that we restore the balance sheet of the company and are ready for future growth. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport recognises the issue and has committed to support us in doing that, subject to wider financial constraints. It is a big challenge for us to make sure that we continue to do that, with continuing support from the Department, which has been very welcome and meaningful. We need to recover the state of the assets to a level that can provide high quality transport.

The priorities Iarnród Éireann should have over the next years are firstly to make sure that we continue to provide an excellent service for the 45 million current passengers. Secondly, the railway infrastructure, an amazing resource, can be used to increase capacity. It will require investment, but we can and need to get more people on existing railways. We should plan for additional rail infrastructure in areas of high population density. Unless we provide high capacity, high quality mass transit, we have no way to meet our sustainability objectives as a community. All of that will require the continued commitment of management, the board, and the staff. Those 3,800 people have shown tremendous dedication to maintaining this railway over a period of under-investment. We need to make sure that we continue to provide an outstanding service for the travelling public.

I should refer to the industrial relations challenges facing Iarnród Éireann. Iarnród Éireann's management recognises and acknowledges that there is an expectation for salary increases among the workforce and, in light of that, management put forward proposals to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, for salary increases in the context of management and organisational change that takes accounts of our straitened financial circumstances. I hope that we can engage with workers and trade union representatives, the good offices of the WRC and the Labour Court, which we expect to have a role in this, to find a way to acknowledge and respond to workers' expectations for a salary increase after a certain period, since there has not been one, while recognising the financial circumstances of the company. I think there is a way to do that and hope that we can get there and avoid unnecessary disruption to the travelling public.