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DUBLIN TRANSPORT AUTHORITY

The appointment of the Dublin Transport Authority Establishment Team was announced by the Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen TD, on 6 November 2005. The Minister appointed Professor Margaret O’Mahony, Head of the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering at Trinity College Dublin as Chairperson of the Establishment Team. The Team's report was presented to the Minister in March 2006 and was published by him on 9 November.

In its report the Establishment Team recommended that:

·    The geographical remit of the Dublin Transport Authority should encompass the entire Greater Dublin Area (GDA) i.e. Dublin City itself and the counties of Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin , Kildare, Meath and Wicklow;

·    The Dublin Transport Authority should have overall responsibility for surface transport in the GDA;

·    The new Authority should have responsibility for a broad range of functions, including Strategic Transport Planning, Procurement of Public Transport Infrastructure, Procurement of Public Transport Services, Regulation of Public Transport Fares, Delivery of an Integrated Public Transport System, Traffic Management; Management of Transport Demand and Data Collection & Research; and

·    The remit of the Authority include some functions in relation to land use.

The report stated that the Authority must have control of all State capital and current funding for public transport and traffic management in the GDA. On the other hand the Team recommended that responsibility for national roads' funding within the GDA should be retained by the NRA, subject only to strategic oversight by the Authority.

Dealing with the relationship between the DTA and the CIÉ Group of Companies, the Establishment Team's report recommended that there should be a direct contractual relationship between the new Authority and the three operating subsidiaries (Iarnród Éireann, Bus Átha Cliath and Bus Éireann) in respect of the provision of public transport services. As part of this relationship, all public service obligation payments and capital grant monies in respect of services or works in the GDA should be paid by the DTA directly to the three companies. The Authority should have powers to issue advisory guidelines and mandatory directions directly to all companies in the CIÉ Group and also have powers to decide the functions to be delivered by CIÉ or by any of its subsidiaries. The Authority should also have powers to step-in and implement any of these functions directly or assign them to a third party, if the performance by the CIÉ Group proved unsatisfactory. CIÉ property disposal in the GDA should be subject to the consent of the Dublin Transport Authority.

While the three operating subsidiaries would remain part of the CIÉ Group, the oversight of public transport operations in the GDA would become the primary responsibility of the DTA, rather than that of CIÉ.

To ensure that a coherent and integrated approach is applied to certain landmark rail infrastructure projects, including Metro North, the St Stephen’s Green Interchange and the ‘Interconnector’, the Team concluded that these should be the responsibility of the DTA. The report also recommended that the Authority should have responsibility for integrated ticketing functions and service procurement in the GDA. Having regard to these considerations, the Team concluded that the Railway Procurement Agency should be absorbed into the DTA.

In launching the report the Minister accepted most of the Establishment Team’s recommendations. However, the proposal regarding functions in relation to land use was rejected as the Government was concerned that it ‘would unnecessarily dilute the democratic accountability of the planning process’.

Responding to the Establishment Team’s report, the RPA issued a statement saying that it ‘fully supports the setting up of a DTA where it can “add value” to the work of existing bodies in the more effective implementation of Transport 21 projects in the Greater Dublin Area’. The Agency, however, does not support the recommendation that the RPA be absorbed by the DTA, stating that the report does not provide a credible explanation why a new State agency should replace one, which is just five years old.

The RPA’s statement went on to say that the Agency had built up a significant level of momentum in the delivery of Transport 21 projects in the GDA, in particular the Metro North project. It fears that the proposals contained in the Establishment Team’s report would have the effect of delaying this momentum and could also cause confusion among potential bidders for the largest Public Private Partnership in the state.