Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

The Minister has acknowledged that one of the main pieces of advice that he was given by the expert committee which drafted this legislation was that two organisations should be dissolved and integrated into the new Dublin transport authority. These were the Dublin Transportation Office and the Railway Procurement Agency. In the Minister's address to the House on Second Stage he explained that he agreed with the thinking behind the dissolution of the Dublin Transportation Office and its assumption into the proposed Dublin transport authority and accepted this recommendation. However, he also indicated he was not prepared to accept similar advice on the dissolution of the Railway Procurement Agency and its assumption into the proposed Dublin transport authority. The Minister outlined his reason for that. He considers that the Railway Procurement Agency was at a very sensitive point in its public private partnership procurement processes for metro north and the additional Luas lines it is charged with delivering and that in view of this he does not believe it is right to dissolve that organisation now given the vital work it is doing.

Even if now is not the right time to integrate the Railway Procurement Agency into the DTA, surely the legislation should allow the Minister to do so if he chooses at some point in the future. One of the reasons the DTA is so badly needed as a co-ordinating body is to address the problems arising from the involvement of so many organisations in providing parts of transport for the Dublin region. Given that the Railway Procurement Agency will be charged with operating some of the most vital new infrastructure we will have, surely we should now create the ability for the Minister for Transport at some point in the future to integrate the RPA into the Dublin transport authority even if the Minister chooses not to execute that function now.

I am particularly minded to make this point to the Minister because so many of the experts involved in advising the Department in drafting the Bill recommended this course of action. The regulatory impact assessment the Department of Transport made available suggested the abolition of the Railway Procurement Agency and its incorporation into the DTA. I am not criticising the Minister for not taking on board the advice of his officials because that is his prerogative. However, I am interested to know why he chose not to provide for the DTA to be able to do this work in the future if he or any of his successors is minded to make that decision.