Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has said major projects in Transport 21, including the proposed new metros for Dublin, are to undergo a new evaluation process to be set up by Government.
Addressing the annual dinner of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Dublin last night, Mr Cullen responded to criticism from Opposition politicians and economic commentators that the financial case for some multimillion-euro projects, particularly metro west, had not been established.
Mr Cullen said current methods to evaluate projects costing more than €30 million "will be put on a more structured basis". He revealed a tender competition is currently under way to select consultants to undertake an annual audit of major schemes, assessing their compliance with Department of Finance guidelines and "particularly review their capital appraisals or business cases".
The auditing process will be overseen by a new Transport 21 monitoring group drawn from the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance, Environment and Transport, as well as the National Development Finance Agency. The practice of also seeking an independent review of the business case put forward by agencies, such as the Railway Procurement Agency and Iarnród Éireann, will continue, he said.
On the subject of value for money, Mr Cullen said the National Roads Authority had brought in 14 schemes last year, of which 11 were under budget. Six of the projects were ahead of schedule and six were on schedule.
The value of the schemes currently under way is more than €4 billion and Mr Cullen insisted the revised target for the completion of the major roads from Dublin to the Border and the regional cities would be completed by the revised timetable of 2010.
