For several years, concerns have been raised about governance failures, spiralling costs, delays, and a lack of delivery of a long-planned IT system to manage the movement of trains across the rail network.
However, it appears that over the coming month key decisions will be taken on the future of the troubled traffic management system (TMS) dubbed by Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien as the “brain of the railway network”.
In April, the chairman of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee, John Brady of Sinn Féin, described the TMS saga as “a slowly developing shambles”.
O’Brien told the Dáil on June 18th that “decisions on software acceptance and future commissioning phases will be taken in mid-July”.
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The Minister said a new IT system was needed but given concerns that €50 million may have been lost, he said: “The manner in which it is being brought about is far from acceptable, and that is putting it mildly.”
The TMS forms part of a larger National Train Control Centre. Essentially this is a new building at Heuston Station which will also accommodate An Garda Síochána, housing its communication centre for the Dublin region as well as local authority staff monitoring road traffic.
The problem, however, centres on the software to be used on the railway component.
The contract for the TMS system was signed with Spanish firm Indra in 2020. It was originally supposed to have been in place two years ago. Several deadlines were missed, however, and the Irish Rail board was told it could be next summer before the first phase – covering the line from Dublin to Rosslare – would be rolled out, and well into the 2030s before the overall project was finalised.
Irish Rail told the Oireachtas transport committee earlier this month it had written down payments of €28.2 million made to Indra. In addition, it has written off more than €17 million spent on project management costs to support Indra in its work.
The figure that has been put out there may not be the figure
— Darragh O'Brien
Overall in its accounts for last year, given to the Department of Transport in May, the board of Irish Rail set out a €50 million impairment on the value of the National Train Control Centre project.
O’Brien told the Dáil the accounts were being examined by NewEra, the group that provides financial and commercial advice to Ministers regarding State companies. However, he appeared to question the €50 million impairment figure in the accounts.
“The figure that has been put out there may not be the figure. That is from what I have been told,” he said.
But the delays with introducing the TMS have also generated other additional costs. O’Brien confirmed that in May he had approved an additional allocation of €5.7 million “to enable Irish Rail to commence additional signalling works to increase operational resilience within the Greater Dublin Area, the busiest part of our rail network”.
The Irish Times reported earlier in June that this was only the first tranche of such additional funding to shore up existing signalling arrangements and €20 million may be needed over three years.
Scrutiny of the TMS project and its costs are set to intensify in the coming weeks.
On Wednesday the National Transport Authority (NTA), which has funded the project, will be before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport with the IT project expected to feature prominently.
The Dáil Public Accounts Committee will examine the issue in mid-July.
In recent days the Irish Rail board is understood to have backed a recommendation from management to terminate its contract with Indra. This is expected to require approval from the NTA.
However, in its own internal assessment of the latest software for the first phase of the project which it tested in May and early June, Irish Rail highlighted safety as well as operational issues.
Irish Rail concluded it was not ready for operational training or commissioning. It found there were significant safety issues to be overcome and resolved and in some cases identical tests were producing different outcomes.
