Oireachtas

Independent review of CIE property planned

An independent review of potential income from the sale of CIE properties is to be carried out, according to the Minister for…

Thu Apr 01 1999 - 01:00

An independent review of potential income from the sale of CIE properties is to be carried out, according to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke.

She told Labour's transport spokesman, Mr Emmet Stagg, that the terms of reference for the review were currently being drafted and she would be advertising soon for consultants to carry out the review.

The review is separate from the one carried out late last year by the board of CIE, which stated that £40 million could be generated from the "disposal of surplus property over the period to 2006". A further £127 million in leveraged borrowings could be obtained against income from the redevelopment of properties.

Ms O'Rourke also told deputies that she would like to see some of the proceeds from the flotation of Telecom Eireann to go towards the public transport infrastructure.

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Mr Stagg said that 2006 was a long time away and given that an extra £500 million in taxes was collected in the first two months of this year, the Government had ample funding now to invest in the rail safety programme.

The Minister said however that previous governments had not engaged in a root-and-branch examination and had not come up with the sum of money required for rail safety, as this Government had.

Fine Gael's public enterprise spokesman, Mr Ivan Yates, said that the Minister "did not like the report she received from CIE and she has now commissioned an independent review of CIE property". Did this mean she did not agree with the CIE report on its property portfolio?

He said the Minister had stacked up £3 billion of transport investment plans, for which she received "not one shilling" from the Minister for Finance.

Mr Stagg said there was no money but Ms O'Rourke replied that "the deputy never did anything about it himself for 21/2 years".

She said cohesion funding had already been announced as part of a very substantial investment in public transport. She said the Government would "see that we get good value for money and that it is done in a properly planned and prudent way".