Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I wish to share time with Deputy Morgan.

This Fine Gael Party motion is timely as there is an ongoing, serious and dangerous lack of accountability to the Dáil and people we represent in many areas of Government administration. This problem has grown since 1997 when this Government, in a different form, took office.

I have strong concerns about parts of the motion. The organisations to which it refers are semi-State bodies. If they were to be subject to the Committee of Public Accounts and Freedom of Information Act, their commercial mandate could be hobbled and they would be left at a profound disadvantage vis-À-vis private sector companies unless all parties were held responsible to the committee.

The trigger for the motion was clearly the recent Baker Tilly report commissioned by CIE to investigate allegations of irregularities in the procurement of certain goods and services in Irish Rail between 2000 and 2006. I was very unhappy with the procedures and internal controls described in the report and it was a matter of grave concern that past employees and companies which had an association with Irish Rail may have been favoured in the procurement process. At the Joint Committee on Transport meeting on the Baker Tilly report, I described the report as devastating in regard to the internal procurement processes up to 2006 and highlighted the responsibility of the chairperson of Irish Rail, Dr. John Lynch, and its chief executive.

The Baker Tilly report found that there had been a circumvention of procurement policies and procedures; people taking advantage of weak internal controls; a lack of trained staff; an absence of controls in the procurement department; the use of incorrect documentation in procurement transactions; non-compliance with procedures; the use of generic invoices which did not appear to refer to specific jobs; problems with budgeting in the infrastructural maintenance programme; the absence of supporting coding structures for track expenditure activity; problems with cost analysis and WBS codes; a lack of traceability; and a lack of the field key to link to the work taking place on the ground. The Labour Party wants all the issues highlighted in the report to be fully and urgently addressed.

Internal controls at Irish Rail should be greatly strengthened and I understand this process has commenced under the chief executive, Mr. Dick Fearn, and the newly appointed commercial manager. In addition, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, Irish Rail and CIE must commit to formally report to Dáil Éireann and the Joint Committee on Transport with regular updates on the implementation of all the report's recommendations. I supported the request for the Minister to appear before the joint committee on this matter and for the boards of CIE and Irish Rail to come before the joint committee with their respective auditing teams to enable the joint committee to make a report to the Oireachtas about what took place, as revealed to us in the Baker Tilly report.

It must be acknowledged that CIE began the investigation into irregular procurement practices and commissioned the Baker Tilly report. Moreover, in the pre-2002 policies, rail procurement policies were weak because Irish Rail had little to procure. Until 2000, the company had a budget of only €16 million per annum for the maintenance of the entire rail network.

The National Roads Authority is another State agency which has received significant tranches of public money over the past decade. Two issues, on which the Minister has refused to be accountable to the Dáil, remain a cause of concern in the NRA's remit, namely, tolling on the M50 and the administration of the Dublin Port tunnel. The saga of the West Link bridge on the M50 has been one of the greatest scandals of this Government and the two Governments that preceded it. In February 2007, my colleague, Deputy Shortall, estimated that the €600 million deal on the West Link toll bridge would, combined with profits already generated, deliver a return to National Toll Roads of an incredible 2,000% for a project which originally cost the company £38 million to build.

Many motorists were disgusted at hikes in toll charges and the difficulties caused by the new system, particularly for those who do not have access to computers, as well as numerous additional administrative charges imposed when the barrier free system was introduced. Tag and video accounts have a range of extra charges, including account management charges, a deposit, minimum top-up requirements and charges for hard copy statements. This week, it was reported that the National Roads Authority has collected €12 million in fines from motorists who failed to pay their toll charges on time.

While I accept the NRA's bona fides on the need to iron out teething problems associated with barrier free tolling, it is unacceptable that the Minister, as far as I am aware, has consistently refused to answer any Labour Party questions in the Dáil on problems with barrier free tolling and the principle of tolling, despite 100,000 motorists being gravely affected by these problems every day. Given the significant public health and safety issues which arose with the Dublin Port tunnel, it is also troubling that the Minister did not instigate a full review of all safety and systems procedures at the tunnel, as I requested at the time. The matter has not yet been addressed in the House.

The fundamental problem is the absence of accountability of Cabinet Ministers to Dáil Éireann for a range of semi-State agencies, companies and regulatory bodies within their remit. The Office of Ceann Comhairle, certainly under the previous Ceann Comhairle, has been complicit in this matter by protecting Ministers from reasonable questions on public policy. This problem has become more acute since 1997.

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