If Mary Harney becomes Minister for Transport...

sliabh

I see the rumour mill suggests that Mary Harney may become the new Minister for Transport. Does anyone know what she has said about plans for the major transport projects around Dublin and the country?

I am particularly interested to see if she will speed up approval for the Luas extension to Cherrywood, the Metro or even the possible eastern link of the M50.

LFCFan

If she becomes minister for Transport she'll just tell us to look for a better route to get to our destination instead of actually doing something about congestion.

lee_baby_simms

Originally posted by sliabh
Luas extension to Cherrywood

Id be especially interested in the above issue. Cant get any feedback from the current 'minature' for Transport.

Maybe its worth bearing in mind that we're talking about a woman who once got air lifted in an army plane in order to cut a red ribbon outside her mates off licence.

robbie1876

I didn't realise the army had transport planes of that capacity.

Seriously though, as slaggable as she is, I believe she is the best person for the transport gig. Who else do we have?

BrianD

Should be interesting to see her plans in relation to:

Aer Rianta

Break up of CIE

and future transport development in Dublin and the country as a whole.

AngelofFire

She`ll just tell us to shop around if we have any complaints about the transport system.

vinnyfitz

She won't be going to transport.

Not sure what will happen Transport but the most likely outcome is that Dermot Ahern will replace Seamus.

MadsL

Considering the half-assed job she made of work permits and immigration policy, we are truly fecked!

LFCFan

I think Dermot Aherne would be a good man for the job. He's shaken up Communications, albeit with a lot more to do, but he could shake up transport in the same fashion. Whatever happens, Brennan has to go. God help us if he gets something like Health though. *shudder*

Flukey

Dermot Ahern is tipped for Foreign Affairs. He always had a strong interest in the Northern Ireland aspect, seeing as he represents a border constituency. Mary Harney could get transport, but god help us if she does!

Slice

If Mary Harney became Minister for Transport she'd force Irish Rail to open up its network to private operators at wholesale prices in the interest of competition - I know that's what Dermot Aherne did for the telecommunications market (however, in the case of telecommunications it worked out quite well) but to be honest those policies have PD fingerprints all over it. Ryanair would then start offering rail services to Galway for 5euro each way and in the eyes of the PDs that would be our public transport problem solved.

sliabh

Originally posted by Slice
Ryanair would then start offering rail services to Galway for 5euro each way

Except "Dublin" would mean Kildare station where there would be a EUR12 bus to take you to the city centre.

Would Ryanair be allowed to let passengers stand in the aisles (or sit in the toilets) I wonder :-)

John R

Originally posted by Slice
If Mary Harney became Minister for Transport she'd force Irish Rail to open up its network to private operators at wholesale prices in the interest of competition - I know that's what Dermot Aherne did for the telecommunications market (however, in the case of telecommunications it worked out quite well) but to be honest those policies have PD fingerprints all over it. Ryanair would then start offering rail services to Galway for 5euro each way and in the eyes of the PDs that would be our public transport problem solved.

Oh yeah, our telecom network is the envy of the western world.


Mary harney is just another dim PD bulb that heard a 5 minute lecture on free market economics once and thought she saw the second coming of christ. These imbesilic lemmings remind me of those alzheimer ridden old biddys you read about every so often that see one of those tele-evangelist conmen and sign over their life savings and the deeds to their house. Except in this case they are signing over all OUR assets.

sliabh

Originally posted by John R
Oh yeah, our telecom network is the envy of the western world.

Actually it's not that bad. I am in Germany at the moment working for a US multinational that is transferring all their regional European data centres to in Irish location because we do have the infrastructure. And you wouldn't get the likes of Google, Ebay, Amazon coming here if we were working with a 2-tin-cans-and-a-bit-of-string infrastructure.

There are major problems though. The sorry excuse for a telecoms company that is Eircom is probably the biggest of them. But one of the ways to solve that is competition and we are making progress down that road. It could be faster, but then it could be a lot slower too.

Originally posted by John R
Mary harney is just another dim PD bulb that heard a 5 minute lecture on free market economics once and thought she saw the second coming of christ. These imbesilic lemmings remind me of those alzheimer ridden old biddys you read about every so often that see one of those tele-evangelist conmen and sign over their life savings and the deeds to their house. Except in this case they are signing over all OUR assets. [/B]

Well we tried the keep everything nationalised solution for years and that kept us as the basket case economy of Europe for years (a quote I heard from one economist "the only thing keeping us out of the third world was the weather"). So unless you have another possible solution, harking back to the old days of state enterprise ain't going to win you any converts.

John R

Originally posted by sliabh
Actually it's not that bad. I am in Germany at the moment working for a US multinational that is transferring all their regional European data centres to in Irish location because we do have the infrastructure. And you wouldn't get the likes of Google, Ebay, Amazon coming here if we were working with a 2-tin-cans-and-a-bit-of-string infrastructure.

Providing a dedicated backbone to international trunks is not a big problem anywhere, India has had a huge surge in the call centre business mostly for overseas customers but the internal telecoms in much of India is still 3rd world.

There are major problems though. The sorry excuse for a telecoms company that is Eircom is probably the biggest of them. But one of the ways to solve that is competition and we are making progress down that road. It could be faster, but then it could be a lot slower too.

Telecoms in Ireland is great but Eircom's network/service is awful is like saying we have the best air and sea connections in the world but the roads are still mud tracks.
We have no competition in the all important last mile copper network and are no closer then we were when eircom were sold off.

Well we tried the keep everything nationalised solution for years and that kept us as the basket case economy of Europe for years (a quote I heard from one economist "the only thing keeping us out of the third world was the weather"). So unless you have another possible solution, harking back to the old days of state enterprise ain't going to win you any converts.

Funny, the transformation of the Irish economy from third world to our current lofty status all happened while these sectors everyone is so eager to sell off were nationalised. Let's not forget that without the enormous support of EU funding we would still be the "basket case economy of Europe" where does that sort of funding fit in with free market economics?

The fact is that our nationalised services did not come about because of some loony left ideology, they became nationalised because of necessity. CIE was formed because the private companies were unable to run the services properly any longer. The only reason eircom has a countrywide copper network serving almost every building in the state is becaue a nationalised industry built it. A profit making business would never have laid wires to every rural house in the land but a nationalised industry could be more concerned with the social benefit of providing these services than the economic potential of making profit out of them.

sliabh

Originally posted by John R
Providing a dedicated backbone to international trunks is not a big problem anywhere, India has had a huge surge in the call centre business mostly for overseas customers but the internal telecoms in much of India is still 3rd world.

Telecoms in Ireland is great but Eircom's network/service is awful is like saying we have the best air and sea connections in the world but the roads are still mud tracks.

A fair point. But I think in general the standards of the network is usually okay. It the quality of the operator that stinks. And this is a legacy of their being a state owned company. They are coasting on what is still a monoply and they don't prioritise customer service because as a nationalised monoply they never had to.

Originally posted by John R

We have no competition in the all important last mile copper network and are no closer then we were when eircom were sold off.

Well reverting to a nationalised telephone network certainly isn't going to help that.

Originally posted by John R

Funny, the transformation of the Irish economy from third world to our current lofty status all happened while these sectors everyone is so eager to sell off were nationalised.

Huh? These companies were nationalised decades ago. The economy only picked up in last 10 years alongside protected markets being opened to compatition. And the transformation happened from the efforts of private sector companies. With the exception of Eircell the companies expanding, hiring and paying large amounts of taxes back to the state were private ones.

Originally posted by John R
Let's not forget that without the enormous support of EU funding we would still be the "basket case economy of Europe" where does that sort of funding fit in with free market economics?

Well that money was spent on infrastructure which enabled the economic transformation. But I wouldn't suggest a complete laissez faire economy. Some state regulation and support is always going to be needed and desierable. But I don't see why the state needs to own a telephone company or an airline.

Originally posted by John R

The fact is that our nationalised services did not come about because of some loony left ideology, they became nationalised because of necessity. CIE was formed because the private companies were unable to run the services properly any longer.

And having built these facilities they then let them rot without investment. You may say that that is the government's fault, but a private company would have made sure that these services were reasonably efficient so that they could generate funding to plow back into maintenance and improvement. The likes of CIE and ESB sat back and didn't worry about efficiency as they knew (up to now) that the state could be expected to bail them out when things got sticky.

If the state companies were (and are so great) then why is it that when they have to go head to head with private ones they end up cutting costs and improving service to compete.

I won't argue that sometimes the state has to ensure services are provided that would not otherwise be there. But the government buying and running a company to do the job is not the way to do it. Instead why not subsidise private companies to provide the service. Look at how air services to regional airports are provided (an otherwise hideously unprofitable service). Private companies tender (like Aer Arrann) and the governement then provides a subvention. While it's not a perfect system you do get competition for the routes, and the service will be provided cheaper (and better) than if the government had to do it all itself.

The alternative is a state company. By it's nature this will rapidy become a protected monoply (e.g. CIE) and loses the drive to be competitive or efficient. As an example my brother worked on the early stages of the Luas with a private engineering firm that worked alongside the (state) RPA. There were 6 RPA engineers doing the same work he was and they ended up complaining that he was making them look bad!

It's this sort of inefficiency that I have a real problem with.