Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 33: To ask the Minister for Transport if work was carried out by consultants for his Department under the heading, Independent Advisor for the Transport 21 Capital Investment Framework - Assignment [14]: Examination of the Department's decision to authorise the re-routing of Dublin Bus's 41x service; and if so, the capital expenditure under Transport 21 it related to. [31976/09]

Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 34: To ask the Minister for Transport the relevant qualifications of the consultants who carried out work for his Department under the heading, Independent Advisor for the Transport 21 Capital Investment Framework - Assignment [14]: Examination of the Department's decision to authorise the re-routing of Dublin Bus's 41x services. [31977/09]

Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 35: To ask the Minister for Transport the cost incurred in carrying out the assignment for his Department under the heading, Independent Advisor for the Transport 21 Capital Investment Framework - Assignment [14]: Examination of the Department's decision to authorise the re-routing of Dublin Bus's 41x services; and the procedures used to assign the work to this consultant. [31978/09]

Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 36: To ask the Minister for Transport if, regarding the work carried out by consultants for his Department under the heading, Independent Advisor for the Transport 21 Capital Investment Framework - Assignment [14]: Examination of the Department's decision to authorise the re-routing of Dublin Bus's 41x services, similar assignments were carried out by the same firm of consultants in relation to the same matter; the relevant qualifications of the personnel involved; when the assignment was made; the cost of same; and the procedures used to assign the work. [31979/09]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to answer Questions Nos. 33 to 36, inclusive, together.

Booz and Company were engaged by my Department in July 2007 to provide independent financial, economic and technical advice to the Department. While the advice being provided is focused on the Transport 21 programme, the contract is not limited to advice on capital projects only. As part of an out of court settlement of a High Court case taken by Digital Messenger, trading as Swords Express, my Department undertook to pursue an inquiry under Section 25 (2) of the Transport Act 1958 in relation to a decision to note the re-routing of the Dublin Bus 41X service from Swords to Dublin City via the Port Tunnel. The terms of the settlement made it clear that the pursuit of the inquiry would be supported by the engagement of consultants.

As a result my Department engaged Booz and Company to a carry out a review of its decision. The arrangement with Booz and Company was pursued as part of the overall engagement with that company as referred to above on the understanding that an additional fee would be made available to them. The report prepared by Booz was made available to Digital Messenger and Dublin Bus who were invited to make submissions before I made the final decision.

Before the engagement with Booz and Company was finalised, the company was required to propose a project plan to the Department, which included the identification of the staff that would be assigned to the task, the approach to be taken and the estimated fee. Fee levels for different staff members had been set in the Department's main contract with the company. Booz and Company can call upon the expertise of a range of transport experts, including transport planners and economists. The lead consultant for this review was a transport planner and engineer with 17 years experience as a consultant. The cost of this review was €23,110

A subsequent submission made in June 2009 by Dublin Bus to make a further amendment to the route of the 41X service was also referred to Booz and Company in view of their prior engagement in relation to the consideration of the original re-routing of that service. The same project manager took charge of the project and the cost of that task was €2, 526.