Irish Independent Article

[Jack Funk]

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...-29436049.html

BE AWARE WHAT IS BELOW IS PARTIAL VERSION

Full article at the above address


.....Vivienne and the anonymous bosses of Bus Eireann, Dublin Bus and Iarnrod Eireann were finally coming to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport to answer TDs questions.

The Transport Committee too had experienced difficulties pinning Vivienne and her team down to a date. It took a frustrated call from the chairman of the committee, John O'Mahony, to Minister Varadkar to haul them in before the summer recess.

.........Almost unnoticed chairman Vivienne, flanked by the bosses of her three divisions, read an opening statement patting herself on the back for screwing the Government for an extra €36m, selling CIE's Spencer Dock site and borrowing even more money from the banks.

It was depressing stuff. The tone was bizarre from a company that lost €300m last year, and whose pension fund is showing a deficit of €480m. CIE has gone over the cliff.

Behind Vivienne and her three male comrades sat four motionless, speechless employees. In her opening remarks – for some reason- she failed to introduce the well-dressed quartet. Perhaps they were bus drivers or railway inspectors?

When asked who they were she looked surprised. Her reply revealed that three of them were spinners, one generously allocated to each division of the supposedly penny-pinching transport company......

I had specifically headed for Committee Room 3 to find out the destiny of one of CIE's most lucrative contracts. The award of contracts to favoured suppliers has always – rightly – been an intensely sensitive area at CIE.

Inside sources had told me that the juiciest of all CIE's gifts, the track maintenance contract for Irish Rail, had only recently been decided. This decision was not just a bonanza for the winner, it was vital to every Irish Rail passenger because the prime ingredient required from the successful contractor is a good safety record. Track maintenance is about safety.

When I asked David Franks, the new chief executive of Irish Rail, the monetary value of his division's track maintenance contract, he admitted that he did not know. An astonishing reply from the boss, considering that it is one of the largest contracts in CIE's gift.

He promised to let me know, a feeble exit from a fair question. Happily, I was able to tell the chief executive that the contract he was awarding was worth over €30m.

He just might have been expected to have such a highly significant number at his fingertips......

More specifically, he agreed that the winner of the tender had already been chosen. And he admitted that the name of the successful candidate was Balfour Beatty, the UK engineering group. Irish Rail is currently negotiating final terms with them.

.....They are an outfit with a fatally chequered safety record. They should never have even been considered for the contract.

Why? Let us look at its terrifying track record on safety. Balfour Beatty was fined £7.5m (€8.71m) – reduced from a record-breaking £10m – in 2006 for its part in the infamous Hatfield train crash on the London-Leeds line. In his judgement in the consequent court case, Mr Justice Mackay described Balfour Beatty's culpability for the tragedy as "one of the worst examples of sustained industrial negligence". Four passengers were killed and 102 people injured in the accident.

...Is this the company that Iarnrod Eireann passengers are expected to trust with their safety?

It emerged during further exchanges that Balfour Beatty was the only company tendering for the Irish Rail job and that the incumbent, Lloyd Rail, had been forced to withdraw from the contest at an early stage because it did not qualify under surprise new terms and conditions.

Balfour Beatty was then selected. Not a very difficult selection as they were the only name in the frame.

Balfour Beatty, the company with the deplorable safety record, has been asked to look after safety at Irish Rail. It had no competitors for a job worth over €30m.

Vivienne Jupp and her new board should immediately collapse the tender process.

Otherwise they should resign for presiding over a complete shambles.

Come back, John Lynch, all is forgiven.

Irish Independent

[comcor]

I wonder if Mr Ross would like to answer a few questions

"Vivienne Jupp and her new board should immediately collapse the tender process." - So what is the interim plan?

"Balfour Beatty was then selected. Not a very difficult selection as they were the only name in the frame." - Who should have been selected instead then? Someone who didn't bid?

"Lloyd Rail, had been forced to withdraw from the contest at an early stage because it did not qualify under surprise new terms and conditions." - Without letting us know what these were, how can we decide if they were reasonable? If they related to heightened KPIs, they would surely be welcome. I'm also not comfortable about this previous relationship considering Irish Rail were the only customer Lloydrail ever managed to get.

Why do I strongly suspect that Shane Ross would be jumping up and down, if the contract had been awarded the other way.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Jack Funk

Come back, John Lynch, all is forgiven.

Oh, no it's not.

[Mark Gleeson]

If a losing or withdrawn tenderer is unhappy they can head to the Four Courts to extract (or not as it may be) there pound of flesh.

Irish Rail has tightened up its contract awards process.

Balfour Beatty has done a fair amount of work for Irish Rail before. Just about every company in the UK has had serious problems, more down to the fragmented dog eat dog world there.