First Luas, Now the Sunday Business Post Goes to War on the Metro

Green light for Metro, but at what cost?

05 March 2006 By Niamh Connolly
After almost a decade of speculation on a metro for the capital, the government finally seems to have moved the project beyond a notion to a real possibility, if last week’s public consultation on route options can be trusted.

‘‘We’re out of speculative mood and we’re into implementation mood,” said Padraic White, chief executive of the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), at the unveiling of three route options from Dublin city centre to Swords in north Co Dublin via Dublin Airport.

But when it comes to declarations about multimillion euro transport projects, the public is increasingly taking a jaundiced view, judging from the response to the ambitious €34.4 billion Transport 21 announcement. Eight years ago, the then minister for public enterprise, Mary O’Rourke, said that the Metro would be on the way within seven years; the government formally announced the project in 2000,while the 2002 Programme for Government said it would be in place by next year.

There is some sense of scepticism about the latest deadline of 2012 for the launch of Metro North which will run from St Stephen’s Green.

The government’s history of delivering major infrastructural projects on time and within budget does not bode well for the target set for the Metro North project.

While recent roads projects are coming in on time since the government jettisoned a ‘back-of-the-envelope’ approach to costings, it will be some time before costings on projects will reflect the final sum.

Dublin Port Tunnel, which was due to open in December 2004, is running €500 million over budget. It has also been leaking, just three months off its latest launch date.

Metro North will be the fifth - and by far the biggest - project for the RPA, which was responsible for Luas, a project that was delayed and over-budget by millions, critics were quick to note last week.

The last cost estimate for Metro, which went into the Dail records in July 2004, was €1.2 billion, based on 2002 figures.

This is precisely why Minister for Transport Martin Cullen is not revealing the cost estimates for Metro North, according to a government source.

In the past, speculative figures were advanced which ‘‘played straight into the hands of construction companies who then inflated figures’’, he said.

Cullen said he wanted to prevent ‘‘a mugging for the state on speculation’’ and said the government was satisfied that the €34.4 billion cost of Transport 21 covered Metro.

But Fine Gael is not convinced.

The government may want to protect taxpayers from add-on costs, but there is unease that it is not being transparent about the financing arrangements, said Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell.

She said she knew of no other project where ‘‘some sort of budget is not made available’’.

‘‘They’re spending public money and to say that it might be a billion or five billion is nonsense. Everybody has a budget and everybody knows this. All he’s trying to do is protect himself in case it turns out to be twice the price,” said Mitchell.

‘‘We have no way of judging the authenticity of Transport 21 until he gives some kind of breakdown of the various projects.

“We’re not asking for it down to the last penny, but at least down to the last billion.”

The complexity of a major project like Metro means the first spade is unlikely to hit the ground for two years, even if the RPA’s timeline goes to plan.

It will take four years to build the Metro, but objections from the public, as well as negotiations over land purchase and possible court cases, could extend that estimate.

The government’s Strategic Infrastructure Bill may ease some of the delays, since the RPA will not be required to engage in lengthy consultations with property owners before tunnelling more than 10 metres below their homes.

With a general election expected in 2007, there’s little doubt that the political will is there to advance Metro and it appears that the exchequer finances are now available to push ahead.

This is a far cry from the long-standing ‘should we, shouldn’t we’ debate that has plagued plans for a metro for years.

Just three years ago, former transport minister Seamus Brennan was in a major standoff with a sceptical former finance minister, Charlie McCreevy, over the cost of the project.

The RPA’s first estimate of €4.8 billion for Metro sent shock waves through the cabinet, prompting Brennan to order a review of the estimates.

The high cost weighed heavily on the shoulders of officials at the Department of Finance, particularly since Iarnrod Eireann proposed a cheaper alternative involving a Dart spur from Spencer Dock on the north quays to Dublin Airport.

Brennan sought the advice of a Spanish transport expert, Professor Manuel Melis Maynor, an engineer who supervised the recent construction of a Madrid Metro extension.

Maynor was invited to Ireland in 2003 to give the government a lesson in cost control.

Maynor said he could build a metro for a fraction of the RPA’s proposed €4.8 billion estimate.

He recommended 24-hour tunnelling and advised the government to change the planning laws to allow a rapid building programme.

He gave estimates showing that the Madrid metro cost €46 million a kilometre to build, compared to Dublin’s estimated €150 million a kilometre.

The state should be less willing to pay substantial fees to ‘‘consultants who consult with consultants and advisers who advise advisers’’, Maynor told a meeting of politicians who included Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Tanaiste Mary Harney.

The RPA dramatically revised its initial estimate of €4.8 billion to €3.4 billion by scaling back the number of stops and design specifications, and introducing 24-hour tunnelling.

The RPA further revised its estimate to €1.2 billion for the direct capital cost of construction in 2002 prices, Cullen told the Dail in July 2004. This is the last figure made publicly available.

Yet, in the same month, Ahern said the cost of an underground metro system for Dublin could not be justified over other state priorities.

That obstacle now appears to have been removed with the Transport 21 plan, though the public will remain in the dark about the final price until a contractor has signed on the dotted line.

The Green Party, which has always supported the Metro project, is calling for an extension south to link up with Luas at Beechwood Station in Ranelagh.

This is in the heart of transport spokesman Eamon Ryan’s Dublin South constituency.

With a political eye on the success of Luas in boosting property prices, expect more politicians to start lobbying for Metro extensions as the general election approaches.