The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, learned only "earlier this year" of the overrun in the cost of the new rail signalling system, her spokesman said yesterday. Another source close to the Minister said she had received an anonymous telephone call during the summer, after which she questioned officials in her Department and was told a report on the overrun had been commissioned by CIE.
A CIE spokesman, Mr Cyril Ferris, told The Irish Times yesterday that Ms O'Rourke's Department had been informed, in writing, of difficulties with the contract in January 1999. He said the Department had been kept informed "every step of the way." CIE had also told the Department it had commissioned a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers into cost overruns at the beginning of this year.
According to Mr Ferris it was not until last November that the board of the parent company, CIE, was informed by Iarnrod Eireann that there was an unknown cost overrun. The CIE chairman, Mr John Lynch, asked the company's chief financial officer to conduct an inquiry into the matter.
In January of this year, said Mr Ferris, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the company's auditors, was asked to carry out the report on the Mini-CTC contract.
The PWC report was first discussed by the CIE board in July and again on September 6th. According to the Minister's spokesman yesterday, the CIE chairman has requested more time to consider the report and to have it discussed further at the November meeting, where possible action will be considered.
The PWC report stated that an earlier report, carried out for Iarnrod Eireann by project managers MHA, showing the "serious deficiencies" in the performance of the contract, had led Iarnrod Eireann to consider a termination of the project in December 1998. However, the absence of a performance bond and concerns over a deadline for the end of December 1999 "may have weakened Iarnrod Eireann's position".
Ms O'Rourke said yesterday the PWC report was "damning." "It is my belief, reading that report, it is the devising of the contract that was incorrect and that in turn led to many other mishaps out of the whole matter," she told RTE Radio.
Ms O'Rourke has written to the chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport, Mr Sean Doherty TD (FF) asking that the committee, meeting next Thursday, consider the matter.
Mr Doherty said the committee would "decide on the appropriate action." He said any further action would depend on whether those inquiries by the committee "were adequate, inadequate or sufficient".
The Fine Gael spokesman on Public Enterprise, Mr Jim Higgins, said an inquiry by the committee "without the key players won't achieve a lot".
He said everyone involved in the project, including current and former executives of Iarnrod Eireann, should be asked to attend.
The committee does not have the power to compel private individuals to attend but the Dail could vote to give the committee powers to compel them to attend.