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The transport quangos in the current environment

  • 04-12-2010 8:43pm
    #1
    strassenwo!f
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,512 ✭✭✭


    Okay, so maybe the timing of the change from DTO to NTA wasn't brilliant.

    But, if one were to look at the work of the DTO over the years of its existence, the output wasn't huge.

    Their first big plan was to send out the office boy to buy some crayons, and then they used said crayons to produce a map of a plan which wasn't implemented, and which is never likely to be implemented.

    The thing they are most likely to be remembered for is the journey planner on their website. (as if most Dubliners needed it to get around their own city, or to know how many calories we would use up on the journey, etc.:()

    What else did they do?

    Little.

    Now we have the NTA, to replace the DTO. Maybe they will eventually find a use for the DTO crayons, but it surely won't be for any infrastructure plan likely to be implemented in the foreseeable future.

    Given the current circumstances, why is it necessary to use a quango to deal with the very limited number of transport projects which will take place in the coming years?

    There may well be great expertise in the NTA.

    But the reality is that the NTA currently amounts to expanding the DTO's journey planner nationwide. What else is there?

    What have the NTA produced thus far, and what are they likely to produce in the next five years of their existence, which is going to make any more of a difference than the DTO did in their ten?

    Little.

    (apart from the DTO's journey planner, rolled out nationwide:rolleyes:)

    Surely, in the circumstances, a government department should be able to handle the journey planner task, and any other transport issues which may arise over the next few years?

    Is an external agency necessary?


Comments

  • #2
    markpb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,391 ✭✭✭markpb


    I suspect the NTA will be to the DoT what the HSE is to the DoH&C - a nice way for the minister (and by extension, the government) to deny that they have any responsibility or authority. Every question about transport in Ireland will be redirected to the NTA and every scandal or problem will see the buck passed to the NTA.

    The NTA does nothing that the DoT didn't do or couldn't do. Some staff were transferred from DoT to NTA when the work was transferred with them.

    My only hope is that the NTA would be more independent than the civil servants in the DoT and would suffer from less political interference but I'm not confident that will happen.


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