[ThomasJ]

Independent
http://www.independent.ie/national-n...l-1871896.html

By Paul Melia


Friday August 28 2009

CRITICAL railway safety checks have not been carried out for the past three years because the watchdog does not have enough staff.

And Irish Rail admitted last night that its inspection regime -- covering more than 1,200 bridges -- would need to be reviewed after one of the busiest rail lines in the country collapsed into the sea last week.

The Railway Safety Commission (RSC) has revealed that it was too busy approving new rail projects to carry out planned safety checks, and it was only able to recruit its full complement of safety inspectors this year.

The RSC is charged with ensuring Irish Rail and other operators perform to the highest safety standards, but last night it emerged that just half the necessary staff were in place to cope with the huge workload of checking safety systems.

And it emerged:


The RSC had warned about a lack of inspectors since it began operations in 2006.
It said this "lack of resources" prevented it from "devoting the time we would wish" to safety checks.
It had just four inspectors responsible for almost 2,000km of rail line and hundreds of bridges until this year.
Only in 2009 could it recruit an additional three inspectors, bringing the total employed to seven.

The Broadmeadow viaduct, which runs over open water in north Dublin, collapsed into the sea last Friday despite being passed as safe following two inspections by Irish Rail engineers.

The company last night stood by its inspection regime, defending a decision to pass the structure as safe despite being told by the Malahide Sea Scouts that one of the supporting piers was damaged.

It has also emerged that the pier that collapsed, causing the viaduct to fall into the water, will not be rebuilt. Instead, engineers will strengthen the line.

But serious questions have been raised over how a supposedly 'safe' bridge could fall into the sea after two inspections.

There are also concerns about safety on the network, especially as the Railway Safety Programme was extended from five to seven years in an effort to reduce costs in last year's Budget.

Ensuring that bridges, viaducts, rail lines, level crossings and all other pieces of rail infrastructure are safe is a key plank of the RSC's brief.

Last year, it also approved 57 infrastructure projects, ranging from construction of new bridges to approval of Luas extensions, which led to it postponing inspections.

"The number of railway projects that required RSC approval meant that we were able to commit less time to performance auditing and monitoring than we would have wished," it warned in its 2008 report.

"A safety management system is only as effective as its implementation. Assessing the railway undertakings' safety case compliance is an essential part of the RSC's work but lack of resources has, in the past, prevented us devoting the time we would wish to this task."

Fine Gael's Transport spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said that the Railway Safety Programme had seen its funding cut, and that there was a "lack of accountability" in relation to the Broadmeadow inquiry.

"They're the regulator of the industry and the guarantor of safety on the trains. I would be very concerned," he said.

Under the Railway Safety Act 2005, Irish Rail is required to commission an independent audit of its safety management system every four years. The next audit is scheduled for 2010.

It will consider if inspections of the Broadmeadow viaduct were regular enough, and if an underwater survey of the pier should have been conducted.

Irish Rail and the RSC are also expected to appear before the Dail Transport Committee next month to answer questions about safety.

- Paul Melia