Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending. He always makes himself available to take transport issues in the Seanad and I thank him for that.

I tabled this matter because of a concern about overruns. In the case of the national children's hospital, which was originally budgeted at €650 million, for example, we are looking at a cost of possibly €1.7 billion or more, an increase of 260%. Hopefully, this will not happen. If overruns of the same scale were to occur elsewhere, the cost of BusConnects would increase from €2 billion to €5.2 billion and that relating to MetroLink would increase from €3.8 billion to a possible €8 billion. There have been significant increases in construction costs and increases of between 12% and 20% in labour costs. Previously, there were substantial overruns when the ticketing system was realigned with the Leap card. The latter is a cashless payment system.

In the context of the core bus corridor project, the National Transport Authority, NTA, originally estimated that the cost of compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, would be between €22 million and €24. That appears to have been a gross underestimate and the new cost is estimated at approximately €32.5 million. In some areas of the Dublin Bay South constituency, the devaluation figure relating to properties is approximately 25%. Without legal fees, valuation and reinstatements, we are looking at approximate devaluation of €500,000 per unit. On the basis of a conservative estimate per unit, the land take could cost up to €500,000.

I am concerned that the Minister should ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in respect of the budgets for BusConnects and MetroLink. We have not seen the estimates relating to the change in the line for the MetroLink on the northside and the impact the latter will have on the overall budget. What I do not want to see is that we go so far and the overruns are so extensive that this project is dropped like a donkey. I certainly do not want to see it dropped like a dead donkey. I am anxious to hear what adequate checks and balances are included to monitor both the budget and to what is happening in the context of overruns.