Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

There is serious concern regarding the awarding of the contract for rail maintenance to a British company, Balfour Beatty, which has also been awarded the €400 million contract for maintenance of the Bord Gáis grid. The reason for this concern, other than the fact that jobs will be lost among Irish contractors, is the company's poor safety record.

Most of this record relates to incidents on the British railway system, including the derailing of a train on a section of line laid by the company. In 2006 Balfour Beatty was fined GB £7.5 million after a train crash which cost four lives and caused 100 injuries on a section of line maintained by the company. In 2007 it was fined GB £180,000 following the fatal electrocution of one of its line maintenance workers. The company also has a rather colourful history in terms of securing contracts. In 2008, for example, it was fined GB £2.25 million when the Serious Fraud Office found it guilty of false accounting. In 2009 it was fined GB £5.2 million by the Office of Fair Trading for corrupt practices in securing construction contracts.

In the light of all this, can the Minister or the public be satisfied that the railway system will be in safe hands? Surely the company's record ought to have been taken into consideration before these contracts were awarded? There is also the worrying development that all of the major contracts for such work within State companies are apparently being awarded to overseas companies. In this instance, the company in question has secured lucrative contracts with Bord Gáis and larnród Éireann, while the contract for line maintenance within the ESB is also being tendered abroad. How does this sit with the Government's target of creating indigenous employment? Irish companies and Irish workers will be considerably impacted by the loss of this work, despite having delivered such contracts to a consistently high standard over the years. That record stands in contrast to the standards of the company in question.

Will the Minister confirm the belief among Irish companies that there is an obligation on public bodies to seek tenders from within the EU? Given the state of the economy and the need to generate employment, there surely ought to be an obligation, particularly on the part of State companies, to ensure such contracts go to Irish companies, which have an established track record in this type of work. I am seriously concerned about awarding this contract to Balfour Beatty given its track record and appearances and convictions before the courts. From a security point of view, given its convictions for fraud and malpractice, this is a dangerous precedent for any Government to set.

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