With little financial room to manoeuvre Varadkar looks to CIÉ as savings vehicle

[karlr42]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...327924838.html

Interview: Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has set it as one of his objectives for next year that the CIÉ group will “deliver financially” in 2013 and will not require another bailout from the Government. The group was to receive special assistance of €36 million this year, but this was later withdrawn.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Irish Times, Varadkar also said that €400 million for roads had been cut from his department’s capital budget for 2013 “and nobody noticed”. As a result, investment in public transport is likely to outpace the funding available for roads over the next two years.

Asked about the latest census figures showing that 69 per cent of commuters throughout the State travel to work by car, he blamed this on “policies pursued over a long period of time”, including “bad planning” that led to longer commutes. Passenger numbers on public transport had “fallen off a hell of a lot”.

Varadkar said he made a point of taking the train from his home near Clonsilla to Dublin city centre about once a week “just to be seen on it”. However, apart from the cross-city Luas link, he conceded that there would be very little money available to invest significantly in public transport “this side of 2016”.

His aim is to improve Dublin Bus services in a “low-cost way” by introducing the Leap card and free wifi on buses as well as keeping the bus fleet “fresh”, with no vehicles more than 12 or 13 years old, because “we don’t want to go back to the 1980s when buses were breaking down all the time”.

Rapid transit

Asked about bus rapid transit, he said preliminary designs had been done for a few routes, including Blanchardstown to UCD and Swords to the city centre via the Dublin Port Tunnel, but there was no money available. There might also have been “very big rows” over parking and taxi ranks on the routes.

The Minister said it was “a shame really” that there were so few public transport projects ready to go for the €2 billion stimulus package announced last summer, which is why it was so heavily tilted towards roads; these were also more amenable to funding by public-private partnership (PPP) projects.

Referring to the cross-city Luas between St Stephen’s Green and Broombridge, the first meeting of a ministerial forum overseeing the €375 million project was held last Thursday and went “very well”. A new traffic plan to facilitate it, including making Kildare Street two-way, would be implemented next year.

“A lot of bus priority is being put in, and if that’s at the expense of cars so be it,” he said. Asked whether it would make sense to integrate bus and light rail services, as has been done in Bordeaux where buses feed into the tramway, he said this was “something we will be forced to do in Dublin . . . we need to do that”.

Referring to the fact that passengers transferring between the Luas lines at O’Connell Street would have to walk up to 149m between stops, he said this was “largely for engineering reasons, and it’s not that unusual in metro or tube stations in other cities to have to walk quite a distance”.

The Minister said more than €200 million had been spent advancing Metro North, Metro West and Dart Underground – all of which he had shelved. “I don’t think that was money well-spent, but it’s not all lost because I do think that Dart Underground will happen some day.

“In the case of Metro North, even if I had €3 billion or €4 billion, would you spend it that way? You’d get a lot of roads and public transport for that. Like a lot of things at the time, it was based on projections that the economy would grow fast forever, and there were plans to have 120,000 people in Swords, etc.”

He said Dublin Airport Authority “has very significant debts” of more than €500 million as a result of building Terminal 2 “which may well be needed in the future, but isn’t really needed now”. However, Dublin Port Company would soon be debt-free “because the good people of Clontarf put an end to its infill plans”.

Cutting staff

Referring to CIÉ, Varadkar said part of its problem was due to “significant overmanning”. But staff numbers had been cut from 6,000 to 4,000, with another 600 to go under the latest voluntary redundancy scheme. Irish Rail will also be getting a new chief executive.

He conceded that railway revenues had fallen due to competition from the motorways, but there was no money to improve rail journey times, which are among the slowest in Europe.

Asked about the Western Rail Corridor, he said it was not even going to be extended to Tuam. But the relatively new Ennis-Athenry link was not losing as much as other rail services such as Limerick Junction-Waterford and Manulla Junction-Ballina and these were being looked at by “number-crunchers”.

Fairly candid and interesting article. I'm not the biggest fan of Varadkar and what I perceive as his endgame of privatising all PT, but I see this as fairly honest. I take issue with a few things though:

The Minister said it was “a shame really” that there were so few public transport projects ready to go for the €2 billion stimulus package announced last summer, which is why it was so heavily tilted towards roads; these were also more amenable to funding by public-private partnership (PPP) projects.

i thought DU or MN were advanced enough to be considered, they had railway orders? Though I suspect the real reason is as he says, the fact the state would actually have to pay for them and not the private sector.

Referring to the fact that passengers transferring between the Luas lines at O’Connell Street would have to walk up to 149m between stops, he said this was “largely for engineering reasons, and it’s not that unusual in metro or tube stations in other cities to have to walk quite a distance”.

Fair play to Frank for bringing that up. The walk is fine, I would just hope that in the end that section of Abbey St. from O'Connell St. to Marlborough St. is pedestrianised or otherwise made more pedestrian friendly. Could be a really nice location if it was handled well.

In the case of Metro North, even if I had €3 billion or €4 billion, would you spend it that way? You’d get a lot of roads and public transport for that. Like a lot of things at the time, it was based on projections that the economy would grow fast forever, and there were plans to have 120,000 people in Swords, etc.”

This is ridiculous frankly. He wouldn't build MN if he had the money? "You’d get a lot of roads and public transport for that."- we have enough roads as it is(he even said no one noticed when the roads budget was cut), and what is MN if not public transport? Public transport is not more fecking buses, it's pieces of dedicated, quality infrastructure like new rail lines. The MN route serves some very high density(by Irish standard) areas and would be stimulate the economy.

He conceded that railway revenues had fallen due to competition from the motorways, but there was no money to improve rail journey times, which are among the slowest in Europe.

Well fair enough so, at least he admits it. No reason not to try, and IE to their credit are making the right kind of steps. Again, Ireland seems to refuse to subvent PT to anywhere near the degree it needs.

[Thomas J Stamp]

by "performing financially" and "not needing a bailout" i take that to mean not another extra funding as in this years €36 million, although there may be a cut to the subsidy too.

what was very interesting, and isnt being commented upon really, was that having asked for a very specific figure of €36 million, it then turned out that they didnt actally need it. And it is not as if any services have been cut since the non-delivery of that money and the end of the year. Fare have risen, but onlt now in December and that in no way will make up for it in one month.

So, if you are in the ministers shoes, you may be asking yourself some pretty interesting questions.

We also asked some pretty interesting questions, and got no real answers which deflected us from the basic premise that they didnt actually need the money.

The minsiter seems to think that cutting staff is the way to go. Be interesting to see how that works out.

As for cutting 400 million from the roads budget and nobody noticing, thats not entirely true, as the newlands cross project has been put off till next year, and something really should be done about upgrading the n7 from the n9 interchange to the globe.

[Mark Gleeson]

We still don't know how the 36 million came about.

There are numerous easy calculations which you can do which get you 36 million, it certainly is enough for the GT bus fleet, enough for the redundancy program, the last batch of ICR's etc

It appears to be a accounting trick to keep the CIE group liquid as the auditors are not happy and they needed evidence that there was cash available to support the company as an on going concern

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

it is not as if any services have been cut since the non-delivery of that money and the end of the year

what about quality changes like the cuts to DART set length?

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

what about quality changes like the cuts to DART set length?

thats not going to raise 36 million.

[Mark Gleeson]

Its not even going to raise 1% of that

Deckchairs on the Titanic kind of stuff, really obvious and in your face so it looks like you are serious about making saving but without actually addressing the real problems at the core, weak management and a lack of business focus.