[Article] Road builders and Irish Rail disputes to cost €100m

Hungerford

TIM O'BRIEN

THE STATE is facing further claims estimated in excess of €100 million as a result of disputes between road builders and Iarnród Éireann.

As recently reported in this newspaper Ban Civil the consortium which built the M9 Waterford to Knocktopher road scheme, lodged a claim for €30 million with Kilkenny County Council over what it said were delays in reaching agreement for work on the Knockmoylan railway bridge.

Now it has emerged similar claims for additional payments were lodged with local authorities in counties Clare, Galway, Meath and Carlow. All allege delays by Iarnród Éireann in processing approval for bridge works.

From today's Irish Times. See http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0821/1224277319004.html for the full article.

foggy_lad

Is it a case that the local authorities imposed penalties on the road builders for falling behind schedule because of Irish rail so they are now claiming this money from Irish rail?

Just read the whole thing and it is just another Irish rail failure, we should be getting well used to this kind of thing from them. Why would they delay road building projects though unless it was to stop their weary passengers from jumping ship and using their cars for more speed and comfort?

Cookie_Monster

Yet another IE scandal that will result in nothing more than wasted tax payers money. :mad:

Sigh, someone please make the entire board resign and disappear

monument

The Irish Times wrote: »

As recently reported in this newspaper Ban Civil the consortium which built the M9 Waterford to Knocktopher road scheme, lodged a claim for €30 million with Kilkenny County Council over what it said were delays in reaching agreement for work on the Knockmoylan railway bridge.

Here is that article. The company is called Bam Civil in this one. :rolleyes:

foggy_lad wrote: »

Is it a case that the local authorities imposed penalties on the road builders for falling behind schedule because of Irish rail so they are now claiming this money from Irish rail?

No. The money is being claimed from the local authorities.

foggy_lad wrote: »

Just read the whole thing and it is just another Irish rail failure, we should be getting well used to this kind of thing from them. Why would they delay road building projects though unless it was to stop their weary passengers from jumping ship and using their cars for more speed and comfort?

Is a conspiracy theories always needed? Why would Irish Rail do that if all they could do is delay for a short time?

Irish Rail's reasoning of strict standards in place sounds more likely, there's far stricter standards around rail than the design of roads. Something Irish Rail may not be saying is that their department dealing with the requests could have been understaffed at the time of the requests due to the volume of requests. There's loads of possible reasons, way before conspiracy theories are needed.

foggy_lad

very true i did not think their engineering department may well have been understaffed particularly after a senior engineer was suspended\removed from her post some time ago.

Carawaystick

monument wrote: »

Why would Irish Rail do that if all they could do is delay for a short time?

Well this week they changed their scheme from delaying me a short time each journey I took, to preventing me getting my intended train due to trestricting the access to Platform 5 in Connolly where about 400 passengers exiting a train prevented about 150 passengers boarding the same train as we all didn't fit through a 1.5m wide chicane.

In fairness to them though, all 12 train journeys I took were late departing and arriving, so they're at least consistent

foggy_lad

One could almost set a clock by their lateness:)

parsi

Just because a developer claims it is true does not make it actually true.

These boyos are short of bobs and are trying every route open to them to get some.