Much has been done, says Seamus Brennan, but there's still much to do in the transport area. Michael McAleer, Motoring Editor, interviews the inister for Transport
This Minister's not for turning. Eighteen months into his term as Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan is now finding that every avenue he's signposted has turned out not to be the yellow brick road first envisaged.
However, despite the numerous setbacks, his resolve seems undiminished. As he faces into Christmas, he has laid out ever more ambitious plans for the coming year. Whether he will succeed remains open to question.
To take on the various interest groups in the transport arena and record the successes he has had already would have been enough for most of his predecessors. To then challenge semi-state bodies such as Aer Rianta and CIÉ seems ambitious in the extreme.
Many of his critics point to the growing pile of unfinished business on the Minister's desk . . . the points system, of which he is rightly proud; the road network and the Red Cow Roundabout; Luas; the Port Tunnel; the delay in driving tests; and the missing traffic corps. All are obstacles to his success and are, in their own right, disasters for those who suffer the consequences.
Yet Brennan is unapologetic about his working style. He's been accused of spur-of-the-moment policy decisions, populist in intent, which ignore potential potholes. His form of policy-making has also irked some interest groups involved in transport, many of whom have had virtually free reign before Seamus Brennan arrived to spoil their fun.
As for the alphabet soup of interest groups, he says: "My job is, in one way, to rise above that and lay out the Government's programme, and then to convince and bring them with me at one level. Failing that, it's to use the Government's authority to insist on it moving that way if it's the Government's decision to do so. I don't balk at that. Governments are there to do the job, not to organise consensus. If it just becomes a referee, I don't think you'll get very much done."
He accepts he may appear to have no grand plan but claims it's all part of a broader vision. "It mightn't appear like there's any great philosophy in what I'm doing but they're all based on four things: making the investment, getting the competition, reforming the systems, and making things happen.
"You don't need to be a major consultant to see what needs doing here: you have to build the motorways, fill in the national roads, invest in the next stage of public transport, improve carriages and rolling stock, liberalise bus transport and continue to enforce the road safety agenda. The agenda is quite simple."
What of concerns that he may upset interest groups? "I've got past worrying about that. Maybe you get to a certain stage in life where you say to yourself, if the country wants this thing and the ordinary guy sitting on a bar stool will tell you that's what should happen and, if you get back to the office and can't make it happen, you have to ask yourself - are you going to push it through, or are you going to get bogged down with the legal and technical arguments."
Of the policies implemented so far, he dismisses criticism that the only legislation passed concerns taxi regulation. It's not all about passing legislation, he says. "A lot of the things we've done only needed regulations or instructions from me. I made them change the DART. I made them take down the road signs and put up sensible ones. Many decisions don't need legislation. I'm not a huge believer in legislation or consultants. If we can do it the simple way, we should.
"I'll be judged not so much on the number of bills I've introduced. It's the combination of the other things, the decisions we've taken through the state bodies, the regulations we've signed, the roads we've built, the rolling stock we've put on the tracks, the penalty points, the lives we've saved. They are the measures other than the number of bills.
"Some people would argue I should stay out of the detail, but I suppose it depends on your style. I'm not the kind of person who can preside over something going wrong if I have the power to stop it. If I haven't the power to stop it, fine, but if I see it going wrong and it's in my bailiwick and I have the power to stop it, then I think I should.
"For example, whether the tunnel should be a foot higher, or a bit lower - the reality is that I could take a decision and instruct the NRA to it."
The Minister is awaiting the final draft of the Atkins report into whether the tunnel should be made higher to accommodate the so-called "supertrucks". He says it will all depend on the costs and delay. "Say it's €100 million and delays the project by two years, then it's out of question. However, if they tell me it only means an extra couple of metres, and as the tunnel lining is not fitted yet, nor is the second tunnel bored yet, the cost will be in the region of €20 million, then we'll do it. If it's reasonably painless, I think we should."
Asked about his greatest success in road transport, he immediately refers to penalty points and improvements in road safety. "We published the 12-month figures recently and they show that, for the first 12 months of points, road deaths were down 20 per cent and injuries were down 22 per cent; spinal injuries were down 50 per cent; the number of insurance claims were down 15 to 20 per cent. It's a life-and-death issue. It has taken a lot of time to bed down, but it's an area with which I'm increasingly pleased."
The minister will also introduce a form of random breath testing before Christmas. Although gardaí will not be able to set up checkpoints for random breath testing, the new rules will allow gardaí to demand a breath test from any motorist they believe may have committed an offence under the wide-ranging Road Traffic Acts.
However, even successes in road safety have been tarnished by the delay in introducing a computer system to record penalty points, forcing the Government to hire a private firm to manually process the points.
Despite the seemingly archaic nature of this operation, Seamus Brennan is determined to add another two offences to the list in the New Year: dangerous overtaking and careless driving. "It would have been reckless of me to wait for the computers, but the contract has been awarded and they tell me the computer system will be ready by the first half of next year." At the same time he hopes to introduce the new Road Traffic Bill, which will include a ban on handheld mobile phones.
Another source of Ministerial pride is progress in upgrading the motorway network. "I was very frustrated about it a year ago, but we're beginning to see real progress. Across the State, we're seeing a lot of the pent-up projects starting to burst through. You'll see a lot more of that over the next few years. Since 2000 we've either under construction or finished 500 km of motorway."
Progress has been marred by continuing controversy over chaos at the busiest junction in the State, the Red Cow Roundabout. The arrival of the Luas into this junction could bring the traffic to a standstill. The Minister accepts there is a problem: "We really shouldn't have tracks mixing in with all that traffic. I'm a huge supporter of the Luas, but this is a problem. It was the Red Cow I described as a mess, not the Luas."
It now seems likely the Minister will opt for a freeflow system rather than elevating the tracks. However, reports this week suggest the costs of the freeflow system are proving prohibitive and further work on widening the M50 into three lanes may not be started in 2004.
Then there's the delay in introducing a dedicated traffic corps. "First off, it's worth remembering that some 500 gardaí are full time on traffic duties. They don't wear special uniforms or ride special bikes but there is a traffic corps. For me the issue is, if the Minister for Justice and I can agree to make them more identifiable and dedicated. He and I have also talked about a pilot scheme that might take in part of Dublin, or Cork. We have set up a working party and they have had their third meeting trying to resolve it."
Plans for compulsory training and a crackdown on untrained provisional licence holders on our roads have fallen foul of the delay in processing driving test applications. Conservative estimates put the delay at 26 weeks.
While accepting this delay is too long, the Minister is critical of the general attitude towards the test. "There's an expectation that you walk in and get your provisional licence on Monday, apply for your test on Tuesday and then wander out and fail the test the following week. That has to stop. What we want to do is say, okay you apply for your provisional licence and you must have that for at least six months before you apply for a licence. During that time you have to show what training you did.
"We are working to see if we can introduce a minimum number of hours of compulsory basic training, say five to 10 hours of professional training, and to show what other training you took with qualified drivers or someone who has had a licence for more than five years."
It may seem like a politically useful approach to take to brush over the growing waiting list. "That's not the motivation. At the moment we turn out 4,000 newly qualified drivers a week. I grant you 26 weeks is too long. Our target is 10 weeks, but I don't particularly want to get it below 10 weeks. These drivers are qualified but they're not experienced and they haven't been on motorways."
So, can we expect all these problems to be dealt with in the coming year, or will he be distracted by his attempts to privatise the airports and open up bus transport? He assures us that roads will not fall on the backburner, particularly with the new Road Traffic bill due before the Dail early next year. It's being used to gather together all the various strands of policy that need legislation and, if all the promises come to fruition, could smooth out the road ahead for this Minister for Transport.