Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Ministers whose appointments have just been announced to us and wish them every success in their new roles. I thank the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, for being most sympathetic on issues we raised here with him, such as the rights of tenants in buy-to-lets and the insolvency issue. I recall one debate that went on late into the night and he was most courteous in facilitating the points made by me and by the Sinn Féin Senators at a very late stage in the evening. One should recognise a man's good points.
Yesterday we had a most interesting debate on disabilities and one point made was how much everybody in this House regrets not being able to do what we would wish in those cases because so much money has walked out of the Exchequer, so to speak, notoriously in the case of banks. We have a duty in this House to ensure we are supporting the watchdogs on public expenditure so that we have money for items such as disability services. One of the projects mentioned yesterday was the Narrow Water Bridge, which is an excellent project connecting County Louth and County Down, but the disagreement on which on the Northern Ireland side rests with what are scandalous cost overruns on this project. On 28 May last year, Mr. Sammy Wilson, the Minister for Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland, sanctioned €14 million as the cost of the bridge. Later, Louth County Council stated it would cost between €26 million and €40 million, plus VAT. It could be as high as €44 million. Why has the cost of this project risen threefold? It would be an act of North-South co-operation if the Comptroller and Auditor General in both jurisdictions, Mr. Kieran Donnelly in Northern Ireland and Mr. Seamus McCarthy here, were to investigate, as a cross-Border project, the scandal associated with the Narrow Water Bridge in terms of the cost having risen so much. Was the original €14 million an attempt to mislead the finance Ministers, North and South? Was it always going to be €44 million? It is less than 200 m. How does it compare internationally with bridges? We want North-South co-operation, we want these links but we cannot condone ever-increasing sums flowing out of the Exchequer when we need them, as we stated yesterday, for items such as disability services.
On 4 July last, the Minister responsible for the postal service was in the House. When we asked him whether it was true that the postcode system would cost €15 million, which figure was published in The Irish Times, he said one should not believe what one reads in the newspapers, the clear implication being that the €15 million was an over-estimation. That project has recently been signed up to for €24 million. It has gone up by 60%, or €1 million a month, and the cost-benefit analysis has not been presented to us. We already have 94% next-day delivery in the post office here. The volumes are down by 40% since the peak. What are the benefits of this project? I have constituents both North and South of the Border and writing to them with four letters and three numbers is far more awkward than writing, "Clones, County Monaghan." What are the benefits? With the Narrow Water Bridge and the postal codes, snake oil salesmen seem to have extracted remarkably easy deals from the Exchequer without cost-benefit analyses, and this House must call a halt to these kinds of processes. I seek a proper debate on the Narrow Water Bridge, reports on the project by the two Comptroller and Auditors General, and some explanation of how the postcode system comes in at €24 million, 60% more than the €15 million that was dismissed as an over-estimation.