Chairman reappointed

[Jack Funk]

From the Irish Times----

"The spokesman also said Mr Varadkar wanted to reform the executive structure of the company and intended to remove the executive powers from the chairman’s role.

The Minister does not believe it is appropriate to combine the role of chairman and chief executive in one post, and wants to change to a structure more in line with private sector companies, he said.

Dr Lynch is also chairman of subsidiary companies Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann and Bus Áth Cliath, and the Minister also wishes to change this"

What other changes are they on about? Is it more new appointees to the board or"executives" ata lower level in district managers traffic offices, infrastructure? Lynch seems to have done a good job renewing track and new carriages fair enough these may have happened anyway but do you think he has done a good job or not??

[Colm Moore]

While lots of money has been spent and any such large expenditure can have problems, corporate governance hasn't been great in places and that is one thing that a good chairman should be addressing.


Full article: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/0326/1224293136307.html

[Mark Gleeson]

If you ever meet Dr Lynch you might get a good idea as to why Irish Rail is the mess it is. In an ideal world he would have been forced to resign over the fraud inquiry in Irish Rail, the Malahide viaduct and the failure to deliver on the journey time promises of On Track 2000, but as our new leader has realised this is not a ideal world.

I will forever remember a lunch in Cork where the management of a major european rolling stock company was insulted by a certain CIE chairperson, it might have been a joke but it didn't work.

Legally its unclear if an extension is even possible as last time round was sold as being the last possible extension. We need a purge of this old school in favour of experienced transport professionals, even if it means getting in someone from Europe

[Inniskeen]

This is apparently a 3 month extension. I would have thought it highly unlikely that further extensions will be forthcoming for a host of reasons including the demise of close friends in high places.

[dowlingm]

If the aim is to implode CIE once the management structures at IE/BE/DB have been made independent from each other I'm all for it. Land transfers and unwinding pensions would probably mean a rump CIE for some time but IE is getting killed by the sister company and it's time there was a management structure that solely worried about IE's place in the transport market. Dealing with the Rosslare Harbour situation would be good too - that should be merged with New Ross and Waterford to form an all-markets group of ports instead of being an oddity in the IE/CIE group, with the FRRHC broken up once and for all.