Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Question 105: To ask the Minister for Transport the amount of public money spent on the construction of the Dublin Port Tunnel to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10005/08]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister for Transport I have responsibility for overall policy and funding in relation to the national roads programme element of Transport 21. As the Deputy is aware, the implementation of individual national road projects and the allocation of funding in relation to the construction or maintenance of such projects are matters for the National Roads Authority (NRA) under the Roads Act, 1993 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned.

The construction of the Dublin Port Tunnel project was procured by Dublin City Council and funded through the NRA. I understand from the NRA that the estimated final outturn cost of the Tunnel remains at €751 million.

The two-fold purpose of the Port Tunnel and the HGV Management Strategy which goes with it are to improve the flow of goods to and from Dublin Port, and to remove heavy goods vehicles from the streets of the city. To date, the operation of both the tunnel and the strategy have made good progress in terms of both of these objectives.

The Dublin Port Tunnel was closed on Wednesday 27th February for approximately nine hours because of an electronic equipment failure. This is the latest in a sequence of electronic equipment failures to cause a temporary closure of the Tunnel.

The NRA and Dublin City Council have repeatedly taken up the issue of electronic equipment failure with the contractors.

Arising from last Wednesday's incident, I have urged both organisations to intensify their efforts to remedy the equipment failures and indeed any other causes for occasional tunnel closures.

The responsibility for the design, installation and provision of the various tunnel systems was that of Nishimatsu-Mowlem-Irishenco (NMI) under the terms of their contract to Dublin City Council. During the delivery of the project, both the NRA and Dublin City Council were repeatedly reassured and guaranteed that the tunnel systems would be fully fit for their intended purpose and that the installed equipment would be both durable and resilient. Since the handover of the tunnel just over one year ago there have been a number of individual equipment malfunctions such that this is clearly not the case in all circumstances.

The issue, therefore is with the durability and reliability of the equipment provided by the contractor

The contractors have been put on notice of legal action to recover all costs arising from deficiencies in the equipment provided. In addition further legal action will be pursued for any further failure on the part of the contractor to urgently carry out all necessary works and equipment replacements to deliver the full tunnel systems to the standard required and contracted for. Where the contractor does not immediately deal with any deficiency in systems or equipment the NRA will do so itself and pursue recovery of the costs from the contractor, so that costs will lie where they contractually should.