Tall Ships drop Minister in hot water

strassenwolf

This is reported in Today's Sunday Independent
************************************************************
Cullen snubs officials and awards grant to home city

JODY CORCORAN

EXCLUSIVE


THE Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, has again landed himself in controversy after it emerged he overruled official advice and gave €375,000 to his home city in circumstances which Fine Gael yesterday said showed he "seems intent on using the taxpayers' money as his personal political slush fund".

The money was used to set up a park and ride facility in Waterford during the Tall Ships Race in July.

In the past, Mr Cullen has been accused of blowing €40m of taxpayers' money on acquiring electronic voting machines for a system whose reliability could not be established.

His political career was for a time threatened when it emerged that his political associate, Monica Leech, also from Waterford, received €390,000 of taxpayers' money to act as a public relations consultant to the Office of Public Works and the Department of Environment - both ministries which Mr Cullen has held.

Yesterday, in relation to this latest controversy, Fine Gael's Transport spokeswoman, Olivia Mitchell said: "Martin Cullen, despite numerous sharp lessons, never seems to learn."

Documents seen by the Sunday Independent show that Waterford's city manager, Conn Murray, first wrote to Mr Cullen on April 28 last seeking €564,000 to operate the park and ride.

The facility allowed up to 250,000 cars to park at four locations in the outskirts of the city and their drivers and passengers take Bus Eireann transport to the port area.

Mr Murray wrote: "Due to the mammoth scale of this event and the unique nature of Waterford city, particularly as a consequence of possessing a single river crossing, Waterford city centre and environs must become car free to cater for the event. This can only be achieved with an extensive park and ride operation."

But the request was initially dismissed out of hand by the public transport planning section of the Department of Transport.

On May 20 last, Paul Hannon wrote: "This division has no funds in its budget for the type of measures sought, and does not fund costs such as private bus operation, staffing and security costs, temporary traffic barriers etc."

A handwritten note on Mr Hannon's letter states: "An added difficulty is that we have recently indicated to the DTO that while some capital funding may be available for park and ride we are not in a position to provide revenue support."

Also in May, Mr Cullen's private secretary, Dermot Murphy took the liberty of preparing a draft letter of refusal.

It states: "The Minister has asked me to say that his Department has no funding available to pay for the operational costs of temporary traffic management and park and ride measures that you outline in your letter. It is suggested that you might wish to explore other sources of funding for the temporary measure.

"The Minister looks forward to receiving in due course proposals for funding and implementation of permanent bus priority measures that are expected to emerge from the bus priority consultancy study that is currently in train Waterford."

But it seems Mr Cullen was actually intent on facilit-ating Waterford City Council's request.

Another handwritten note states: "Discussed with Minister. He wishes to provide a grant in support of the P and R operation expenditure taking account of the exceptional once-off nature of the event and the fact that it will be a significant experiment on a car-free city and a pilot of the scope for permanent P and R for Waterford."

Subsequent correspondence, dated June 24, prepared by Maurice Treacy of the Department's Railway Safety and Investment Division, recommended that the Department support the proposal as outlined by Waterford City Council with a contribution of €375,000.

The Department wrote to the city manager on July 8 stating it had particular interest in assessing the effects of removing traffic from the city centre for the duration of the race, the arrangements put in place for traffic management and the lessons to be learned from "this experiment".

On July 13 a local newspaper, the Waterford News and Star, reported: "The overwhelming success of the free park and ride system which brought 250,000 people in and out of the city between Wednesday and the early hours of Saturday last was facilitated through a massive cash grant from the Department of Transport.

"Minister Martin Cullen, came to the rescue of the Tall Ships management committee with a massive €370,000 to cover the cost of the 100 buses and their drivers which operated up to 18 hours a day from four different locations on the outskirts of the city."

Yesterday, FG transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said: "The Minister that brought us the e-voting fiasco, pumped up PR contracts for supporters and a penalty points system that hasn't delivered seems intent on using the taxpayers' money as his personal political slush fund.

"Overriding senior officials advice on the awarding of €375,000 of a grant to fund a park and ride operation during the Tall Ships visit to Waterford completely undermines the integrity of the grant applications system that every local group, sports club and voluntary body has to go through to secure funds.

"It is irrelevant that the event in question was significant and popular. What is relevant is that taxpayers' money has been used at the clear discretion of this Minister when he was clearly advised differently."
***********************************************************
Will he be keelhauled by Bertie for this one? Or even given the cat o' nine tails? Ministers don't walk the plank in Ireland.

Thomond Pk

Fine Gael should not complain; Martin Cullen's origins were in Fine Gael before he stood for election as a PD in Waterford in 1987. The rest is history......

mike65

This should be considered a non-event. Waterford needed the park and ride system and it worked. If the money had'nt been forthcoming the result would have been a state of chasis!

Mike.

cyclopath2001

mike65 wrote:

This should be considered a non-event. Waterford needed the park and ride system and it worked. If the money had'nt been forthcoming the result would have been a state of chasis!

Yes, but at what cost? The event organisers should have covered this cost themselves and not the taxpayer. There's no evidence that private funding was sought.

The minister should have been aware that over-ruling his advisors in a situation where the benefit was for his own consituency was likely to raise questions about his motives.

RainyDay

Nothing that Cullen does surprises me anymore - He's a classic 'old school' FF minister, i.e. no brains necessary, just look after your own (in the broadest sense of the word), and waffle on endlessly until the reporter gives up trying to get anything sensible out of you.

Bad news is that some commentators on Radio 1 today reckoned that he now has a kind of 'diplomatic immunity' in the cabinet, as Bertie is so determined not to be seen to be giving into the meeja that he will never sack the bould Martin.

fly_agaric

mike65 wrote:

This should be considered a non-event. Waterford needed the park and ride system and it worked. If the money had'nt been forthcoming the result would have been a state of chasis!

Mike.

Isn't it just lucky for Waterford that they have someone like bould Martin to go to bat for them. His next brainchild: a maglev train track from Dublin to Waterford.