Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)

I will make a few very small opening points. I will direct them to the Department. The public will be a bit confused as to who does what here. We have the Department of Transport, the National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland and then we have organisations with which people are familiar such as Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann, CIÉ and the local authorities. Will the Department, within two weeks, send us a diagram as to who does what? I am listening to the Department of Transport responsible for policy and then I look at the NTA and it is responsible for strategic planning in its area. I do not get the difference or I am not sure of it. I know the Department holds the purse strings; I know that much. It seems as though a lot of the witnesses are doing a lot of things and the Department has an oversight and a funding role and things like that. I know it is a daily language for those who use the services but people who do not use the service may not get the specific differences between the metro, the light rail and the DART services. People who use them know them. The greater public who do not use the DART service do not know the difference between them. Will the Department provide a note to explain the difference between the three organisations because a lot of it seems similar? They all refer to planning and policy, designing and funding and the different gates. I want a bit of simplicity. The theme of our work across the board is probably going to be this as it is hard to know who is responsible for what. It is not a criticism, just that the system is so big and there are so many others involved. The Commission for Railway Regulation was mentioned. I do not know what role it has when it comes to Iarnród Éireann and the Department. I do not know if TII has a role there but it is in there somewhere as well. I heard its name mentioned. We need to have a clearer view at this Oireachtas committee. The witnesses know it by heart. They know the difference because they work on it at least nine to five every week but the public do not. Part of our job is for the public to understand what is going on here. I think the witnesses get what I am looking for.

The only question I have really is to TII. The opening statement read:

Annual grant allocations to TII have been suboptimal over the first half of the current NDP. This has limited the advancement of many of these projects. Funding constraints have resulted, most profoundly last year and this year, in cuts to asset renewal activity across the national road network to ensure that sufficient funds were available to advance the Government’s priority projects.

Will the witnesses from the TII and the Department explain the criteria by which it was decided what was held over and how important it was? Were some projects seen as just maintenance and renewal which could wait a year versus the projects that were vital to move ahead? That is my only question and then I will go to Deputy Neville.