Mr. Cormac O'Rourke:

I will first address the issue of the merger and the possibility of job losses. What we are doing in this regard represents a major challenge. However, there is not a huge overlap between the two companies. One is a road management and road building company and the other is a railway procurement company. The overlap tends to be in the central areas. It will be another few weeks before we finish the organisational design. I do not expect there to be significant job losses. There will undoubtedly be some retraining and redeployment but I do not expect significant job losses in either organisation. It is a little early to say what will be the position. We have had a first cut at the organisational design and we are now trying to refine it and check what we have done is correct.

I am very familiar with the north-west link, particularly as I travel to Donegal from time to time. As far as I am aware, there is no funding available for this project and it has not appeared on any list of proposed projects. I understand Mr. Fred Barry discussed this matter with the committee on the previous occasion on which he appeared before it. I would be delighted to have money to spend on this project but it is not a priority at present. In the coming couple of years, the priority projects will be the N11, the Newlands Cross interchange and the N17 from Gort to Tuam.

Clearly, if funding becomes available for that in the stimulus package, then the next ones are the Enniscorthy and New Ross roads.

There is no point in being disingenuous with the committee about BXD. It will involve a certain level of disruption. We are putting in place significant consultation between the NTA, the RPA and local business interests. We will try our very best to minimise disruption. One of the strengths of the RPA, which we were talking about yesterday at the board, is that when it finishes a project it sits down and instead of patting itself on the back, figures out what it could have done better and asks what lessons have been learned. In that way, it has kept fresh the mistakes that have been made. Engineers are not perfect. I speak as one myself. We all make mistakes. In those circumstances, it is a very strong tool to sit down after a project and say this and this could have been done better and this is how, so it stays in the culture of the organisation. Having recently done three extension projects, the RPA is in a much better position to manage BXD in a way that minimises disruption.

I share the committee’s view on metro north. I would love to be in a position for the RPA to build it but the money is not there at the moment. It is a large project. Any of us who has been in cities that have good metro networks would love to have one in Dublin. I am an optimist by nature. We will get to a point where we will be able to build such major projects, not just light rail but also roads. I would love to see the western corridor and the link to the north west completed. We will get back there but for the immediate period, we are not going to see metro north on the books.

We are keen to keep the railway order alive so that we have the option. One of my jobs in a time of straitened circumstances is to keep options alive. The metro north planning permission will be kept fresh so that if the money becomes available, we can go ahead and build it. Similarly, with road projects, where we have planning permission if money becomes available, whether it is through Europe or directly from the Government, I would love to be in a position to be able to pull down the planning permission and get on with the project.

In response to Deputy Harrington’s question about conflicts in the NRA and the RPA, I do not see that. In many ways the two chief executives have done extremely well in working together. There has been no conflict at all. In many ways their skills are complementary. They are basically both procurement agencies and one of the strengths of bringing these two organisations together is that one can have two lots of people who have worked on different types of procurement being able to cross-fertilise their ideas. It will be good for both of them. They can bounce ideas off one another.

Deputy Harrington is right about staff expertise in that there is a different expertise in building and maintenance but they are professionals and they are well capable of being retrained and moving from building to maintenance. As an engineer, I like to see both of those skillsets in the one organisation in order that both the operation and maintenance and building skills are complementary. The lessons one learns in one are transferable to the other. Fred Barry has done a lot of that with the NRA. Many of the people who were involved in building the network are now involved in both operation and maintenance. I feel very strongly that as a country we have just got to keep that expertise in those organisations. They are professional people. They will not be idle. They will be getting ready for new projects and maintaining the existing framework. From that point of view, I hope that when we have money again we will be in a position to start out and not to have to wait around for planning permission.

In terms of Senator Mooney’s questions on the funding requirement, we reckon we are approximately €100 million short for maintenance this year, but there is a level of flexibility and the organisation is very well equipped, where there is an emergency or deterioration, to move money between budgets, subject to the agreement of the Department. It is not quite as rigid as it would first appear, but we are short of money. Part of my job is to fight for that maintenance budget so that we do not allow valuable infrastructure to deteriorate.

Moving on to the role of public private partnerships, there has been a great development within recent weeks in the closing of the schools bundle three. It is a major achievement for the National Development Finance Agency. Many of the issues which arose in trying to get that schools bundle closed should be able to transfer to the N11-Newlands Cross project. We are hopeful that will close in quarter two. I share the Senator’s optimism. It is good that we are finally beginning to see money flow to this country. The bond that the ESB issued was hugely oversubscribed, which is positive. Similarly, there was huge oversubscription for bonds. That is a positive for this country.

The National Treasury Management Agency is doing a good job of selling this country. It behoves all of us to interact where we can with people and to tell the positives about the Irish story. It is not all doom and gloom. I meet international financiers and undoubtedly there is a move back towards considering this country in a much more positive light.