Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I support the call. We should have the three reports in full. The bit of information we have raises many questions. It reaches a damning conclusion but it raises many questions. Was the Minister shocked by the reference that the 2006 scour report, which Irish Rail conducted, decided it would investigate only underneath the piers six years later, in 2012? That seems an indictment of maintenance procedures. It is incumbent on the Minister to publish it. Questions must be raised about the Railway Safety Commission. We passed the Bill to establish the commission five years ago and it was established four years ago. It has very small resources and I felt its performance at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport was not sufficient and that was before this near disaster occurred. Will the Minister review everything about the Railway Safety Commission? The history of recent years reveals that a series of regulators, from the banking industry to building control, was not just light touch but non-existent. Was railway safety part of the same cancer, in other words non-regulation? The Minister should look at the commission as well as at Irish Rail.

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