Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I welcome the belated opportunity to speak on Transport 21, although given the policy was announced more than one year ago, it is a shame we are only now making statements on it. This is a sterile and futile way of discussing a policy which merits a proper debate on the enormous investments it proposes on behalf of the taxpayer. I regret the Minister for Transport, who is responsible for Transport 21, is not here. Given the significance of this issue for everybody in the country, he should have shown more respect to the House by at least listening to the opinion of Opposition Deputies.

Fine Gael fundamentally believes there is nothing more important to this country than investing in transport infrastructure. I disregard the advice of the ESRI to slow investment in this area because transport is crucial to the economy. Far form causing inflation, it is necessary to invest in transport if we are to avoid inflation and remain competitive. We simply cannot cut spending on transport. The overruns that have arisen in major engineering projects have been a result of a lack of capacity in the economy but, since the expansion of the EU, labour has been readily available, although the need remains to strengthen project management teams and the technical and financial support required for major projects. Given the magnitude of the investments in transport planned for the next ten years, it is essential we spend money in such a way that taxpayers receive the best possible value.

While I have no problem with any of the projects proposed in Transport 21, and indeed support most of them, I know nothing about them other than their names. Apart from having a list of projects, I know nothing about any of the projects nor does anybody else. I do not know the cost or priority of projects. I do not even know if anybody has a list of priorities or what informed those priorities. I know nothing of a cost-benefit analysis, a programme of works, working budgets, tender dates or construction start dates. We know nothing more than we knew 12 months ago when the initiative was announced. While individual announcements have been made, we do not have any integrated sense of what is going on. We have a list of projects with nobody managing it, although we hear we are to get some detail on the Dublin transport authority today.

We are not even sure what falls into the €34 billion. For instance the metro was announced in recent weeks. While it is on the list it does not form part of the €34 billion because, as a public private partnership, we will not begin to pay for it until after 2015 when the plan expires. While I hope the metro will be built by then, it is not part of the €34 billion envelope. While I do not want to be too critical of projects that I support, I am critical about how they are being managed. It is not inappropriate for us to criticise the lack of information when the spend is €34 billion.

The bulk of this money will be spent in Dublin on public transport projects. I have a concern, which has been mentioned by others. The network of routes that forms the Dublin investment was first published in 2001 before the last general election and was based on a Platform for Change, prepared by the Dublin Transportation Office and for which a cost-benefit analysis was completed. In other words a cost-benefit analysis was carried out for the entire network of routes. Since then major changes have been made to the plan. Many projects have been taken out, including the Luas to serve Rathfarnham in my constituency, without any explanation. The interconnector that was not in a Platform for Change was added. There have been various additions, subtractions and changes. For instance, new metro stations have been inserted and the location of stations has changed. Major connections have been changed. Despite those changes, which will have a huge impact on the overall feasibility of and return on the investment, no network cost-benefit analysis has been completed and as far as I am aware there is no plan to do one, which is very disturbing.

The Minister talked about the importance of connectivity, with which I agree. However, the location of connections is vital. Making a major change, for example to move a connection to Drumcondra — everything seems to connect in Drumcondra these days — which might be the right thing to do, has a major impact on the overall costs and benefits because it impacts on the entire network and not just on that route.

The Luas was savaged by Senator O'Rourke when she took out its middle and did not join the two lines. The impact was not just an inconvenience to passengers — happily many passengers now benefit from the service — but affected 5 million passengers each year who would have used the service had it been connected. Not only did we get a bad return on investment, we must also always be conscious of the opportunity cost of not doing things or changing them. We received no explanation of the decision about the Luas line to Rathfarnham and its possible impact. Nor have we received an evaluation of the impact on the rest of the network.

We need not only a network appraisal and cost-benefit analysis, but also individual cost-benefit analyses. We are told these exist, but are being kept a secret. Even if we knew what they were, they are being done in the wrong way because each agency is doing its own cost-benefit analysis to different objectives and criteria. What one body regards as a benefit and will present as such when making a case for its particular investment project might be detrimental to another agency's project. There is no integration or co-ordination between them. A CIE project might be of great benefit to it, but might take passengers from Dublin Bus or another project that the RPA might have in mind. Without overall common criteria, cost-benefit analyses are meaningless. We are making investments without having established any good case.

Transport 21 is too big an investment for secrecy. We must make decisions based on hard information and not on intuition. We need transparency, openness and the hard-nosed professional cost-benefit analysis of the network and the individual projects to common criteria. While I do not know whether this country has the technical and professional experience and know-how to complete the kind of analysis required of projects of this size, we must buy it in before we get much further with any of the projects. For instance the metro is a very expensive project that needs the technical, professional and financial input that was never required for any previous project. We must learn from the mistakes that were made with the port tunnel, which will end up costing twice what it should have cost.

Today will see the announcement of the Dublin transport authority. This time last year we criticised Transport 21 as being a list into which no prior preparation had been put. It had no body to drive it forward, co-ordinate the projects or decide their priorities. Hurriedly the Minister announced the following day that he would appoint a Dublin transport authority. As further proof of how little thought went into it, he then asked Professor O'Mahony to go away and come back in a few weeks to tell him what the body would do. Twelve months later we understand the report is to be published. We still do not have the body or the legislation and projects are proceeding. It is no wonder that projects are proceeding without co-ordination between them. The agencies are clamouring for favour for their particular projects. Rows are ongoing between the agencies over, for instance, integrated ticketing and road space with Dublin Bus fighting with the RPA over road space. These unnecessary tensions exist because no overarching body is looking after the public good rather than the good of individual agencies.

The long-promised transportation authority is needed to integrate, prioritise and co-ordinate all the projects and to at least ensure they are not competing with one and other. It needs to be strong, professional and most of all independent of the agencies to ensure the interests of consumers and not the providers are put to the fore.

I am very conscious of the experience that has been built up in the various agencies, the CIE group, the DTO and the RPA. I hope the best of that can be maintained in the body to be announced today. However, we will need to bring in outside expertise for the management of major projects. I would prefer to see someone from outside the existing agencies heading up the new body. The DTO is the only body with experience in modelling. It has the expertise and has completed the training. It can provide validity to the other agencies' projects because it is respected and known to be the only body with that modelling expertise. It is important that expertise is not dissipated in the clean sweep that may occur. We have not heard the detail but I hope the expertise of all the bodies can be subsumed into the new transportation authority. Decisions must be made on a professional basis and not on the basis of who shouts loudest. Nor can we allow expensive projects to go ahead, as we have done in the past, simply because they have reached the stage where they have taken on a life of their own.

The port tunnel is a case in point. It may have a great purpose but nobody knows what it is. When the eastern bypass project was dropped, the port tunnel had reached the stage where nobody could make the decision to stop it; it had taken on a life of its own. It is now effectively serving only Dublin Port for trucks and the decision has been made to move the port, which was the justification for the tunnel in the first place. That makes little sense, particularly when we consider other infrastructure projects that are going ahead throughout this city. I do not know if the incinerator in Ringsend will go ahead — it is being talked about — but the tunnel is on the north side. The two baling stations for the entire Dublin region will be on the south side. That does not make much sense. There is a lack of co-ordination.

I understand it is planned to publish the legislation before Christmas but it must be passed and the body set up on a statutory basis as quickly as possible to ensure there is no waste in these projects, that priorities are established and that we do not have two major works as in the case of the port tunnel which, when finished, will direct traffic on to the M50 just when it is being dug up. We need a strong body to ensure that type of scenario does not happen in the future and that we get the best value for money in projects such as integrated ticketing. That must be a priority for the Dublin transport authority. I ask the Minister to ensure, when he announces the details of this body today, that he moves immediately to set up a shadow authority so that the work of co-ordination, integration and prioritisation can proceed with speed.

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