€13m cost overrun on integrated transport ticketing

There will be a cost overrun of at least €13 million on the €29.6 million initial budget for Dublin's integrated ticketing system for public transport, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee has been told.

Secretary general of the Department of Transport Julie O'Neill also told the committee yesterday the Shannon tunnel currently under construction could have been replaced with a cheaper bridge, if the department had been told that Limerick Port activities were moving to Foynes.

Ms O'Neill also told the committee that the Government could, if it chose, block the sale of Aer Lingus to Ryanair, through its minority stake in the company.

Responding to a value-for-money report from the Comptroller and Auditor general, Ms O'Neill said she was "disappointed" but not very surprised that the integrated ticketing project, which was initiated in 2002, had proven to be problematical as similar difficulties had been encountered in other countries.

She acknowledged that there was no definite date for the completion of the project and while the current budget was now €42.7 million, she would be "surprised if those figures did not change".

In his report, Comptroller and Auditor general John Purcell said a failed public procurement process undertaken by project manager the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) had cost almost €1 million and delayed the project by about one year. Mr Purcell said no value had been achieved by the RPA for this money. A contributory factor in the delays and cost overruns was, according to the report, "underlying tensions between the CIÉ companies and the RPA".

The project was also beset by difficulties in connection with private bus companies which withdrew from the scheme.

A number of companies, including Dublin Bus, said they needed to move ahead with their own smart cards and could not wait for the RPA to integrate the systems. Dublin Bus said yesterday its smart card would be issued within weeks but it would not be integrated for use on other services.

Questioned by Public Accounts Committee chairman Michael Noonan (FG), Ms O'Neill agreed that the Shannon tunnel at Limerick was installed because a bridge would have upset cargo operations at Limerick docks.

She noted the port company had made significant and serious submissions to the department on the need for a tunnel, instead of a bridge, which it feared would be too low to allow ships through.

The move of the port activities to Foynes and the redevelopment of the docks now meant a bridge would be satisfactory, she said.

Mr Noonan said the bridge would be about a third of the cost of the tunnel. It was, he said, a "bad example of joined-up Government".

Saying that she had only yesterday learned of the Ryanair buy-up of Aer Lingus shares, Ms O'Neill said the Government's shareholding was sufficiently large to block the bid if that was public policy.