Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

My colleague, Deputy Bruton, dealt with a variety of issues, including the misspending of public money. I shall deal solely with transport issues, a field that is strewn with over-spending, misspending, opportunity costs, from the bus lanes on which more than €100 million has been spent, many of which are devoid of buses, the Dublin Port tunnel project which is coming in at probably the most expensive infrastructure project ever in Europe, the Aer Lingus debacle and the terminal at Dublin Airport where a decision must be made — the opportunity costs there are unknowable. The actual costs of construction are greatly increased and still unknown.

Against a background of the order of over-spending on these projects presided over largely by the Minister for Transport, no doubt the over-spending on integrated ticketing might appear minuscule to Ministers who have so much money that they consider millions of euro as small change. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report on integrated ticketing is a sorry saga of pitiful public governance. From the start the project was badly conceived, poorly supervised, inadequately supported and doomed to failure because of the absence of political commitment to the kind of framework necessary for its success. The report makes it clear that the bottom of the problem was a political failure.

Already €10.5 million of taxpayers' money has been spent and we have no card, smart or otherwise, and no early prospect of such a card. The budget has gone from €29.6 million to €42.7 million and nobody knows where it will end. The €10.5 million already spent is dead money. It makes no contribution and has been completely wasted. We will have to start again. More has been lost in the initial financial outlay of the €10.5 million. The opportunity cost of failure to deliver something promised as far back as 1997 by the then Minister, Senator O'Rourke, must also be factored in, as well as the inconvenience to the travelling public, the potential synergies that might have arisen in the actual integration growth of the transport systems from an integrated and co-operative ticketing system and the distraction and time wasted by the various actors and organisations involved in this whole unproductive exercise. On all fronts this was an exercise in how not to do business and how not to manage public money.

The project was precluded from success by the absence of political direction and political decisions about the future regulatory framework for public transport. There were hints of what might happen in the future. This resulted for everybody in complete uncertainty as to where they stood. There were question marks over the existence of some of the organisations post the setting up of the promised Dublin Transportation Authority and none knew the extent or the nature of their future involvement in public transport delivery. Small wonder then their reluctance to get involved in any particular ticketing system. The Minister was well aware of the tensions between the players but continued to sit on his hands, refusing to give direction or comfort to those who were uncertain of their future role——

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