A PRIVATE report prepared for the National Roads Authority (NRA) confirms the Dublin Port Tunnel was unsafe when it opened in 2006, Fine Gael’s spokesman on transport Fergus O’Dowd has claimed. He says the existence of the engineer’s report, dating from October 2007, was “concealed” by the NRA from him for over a year. The document was released to him after he appealed to Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly.
The 2007 report, prepared by systems engineer Martin Kelly 10 months after the official opening of the tunnel, found there had been occasions when the tunnel had to be closed when electronic equipment failed. This report, and a further report from 2008, also raised issues about the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.
Mr O’Dowd last night said it was “regrettable” there has been such “a determined effort to deny and conceal the existence of the [2007] report”. The NRA last night said it acknowledged problems with the SCADA system at Oireachtas transport committee meetings in March 2008 and October 2008.