The Irish economy has had many successes in recent year and some remarkable failures. Such failure is especially so in the development of transport policy, writes Garret FitzGerald
In domestic transport the monopolistic arrangements that were introduced in the early 1930s, with a view to protecting the railways and the Dublin trams from road competition, still survive.
From time to time we have been told that reforming legislation on this matter is pending, yet it looks as if the Government may leave office with an unblemished 10-year record of inactivity in this important matter.
Even in respect of a decision that would hugely benefit Dublin commuters - and could win the Government votes - namely, the provision of extra buses for the city's many new bus lanes, the Government has been unable to decide how these additional buses should be provided.
They could be provided at no cost to the Exchequer by private companies, or with Exchequer funding to the Dublin Bus monopoly. Within the Government, this issue has been fought to a standstill in a debate on antiquated ideological lines.
The public interest would have much better served if the Government had taken a rational decision to give to a new and impartial Dublin Transport Authority the function of deciding what services should be provided and, on a lowest-cost basis, which of these approved routes should be awarded to public or private bus companies for an agreed service.
Dublin Bus, with its long experience of the business, might well have won most of these franchises, but competition with the private sector would have ensured that the passengers were best and most economically served.
So far as bus services outside Dublin are concerned, we have seen how several years ago the belated authorisation of bus competition on the Dublin-Galway route hugely increased the frequency of that service.
It also reduced the fare per mile to 60 per cent below what Bus Éireann was then charging on the Belfast route where it still retained a monopoly.
There are of course other forms of transport which are not readily amenable to competition, ie rail transport. Ideological attempts to impose artificial forms of competition on the British rail system two decades ago had disastrous consequences.
Our approach to rail transport has been to finance the redevelopment of our passenger rail system by a State company.
Of course, these improved rail services will not pay for themselves, but the judgment has been that the social benefits of an efficient rail system between cities will justify financial subsidisation.
Yet for this investment to be justified socially it will be necessary for these modernised passenger rail services to offer an advantage over inter-city journeys on new motorways that will soon connect the cities.
However, while we are promised in the immediate future frequent rail services on these routes, we are still not being offered improvements in journey times.
When some years ago the Dublin-Belfast route was about to be rebuilt and re-equipped, we were told that the journey time would be cut to 95 minutes.
In the event, the journey time on almost all trains between these cities is now 130 minutes, viz a speed of only 52mph. This is no better than that achieved in Britain over some similar distances as far back as 1887 - almost 120 years ago!
The persistent failure to tackle many deficiencies in our transport system appears to reflect the extreme weakness of the present Fianna Fáil/PD Government in the face of trade union pressure designed to maintain an antiquated, high-cost and overwhelmingly monopolistic domestic transport regime.
I don't propose in this article to reopen the long-running Luas/metro argument save to point out new evidence recently vouchsafed about the scale of the failure to make adequate provision for traffic demand on the Luas line from Stillorgan.
It has been quite fascinating to see how this failure has now been presented as a PR success.
This is being done by trumpeting the fact that an operating profit has been achieved ahead of schedule.
Yet this has been achieved at the expense of commuters left behind or crammed into overcrowded trams because of the inadequacy of the service.
What is new is that we have now been told that, even if more trams are bought for this route, it would still be impossible with the present arrangements to increase tram frequency to meet future demand.
This is because those responsible for the project chose to limit the supply of electricity to a scale that will permit only 15 trams per hour.
As has been the case with many State companies, those in the transport sector have suffered from the inadequacy of many board members appointed by governments.
By persistently using State board membership to reward loyal political party supporters, often regardless of whether these have any of the qualities needed for such responsible positions, successive governments have often undermined the viability of key State enterprises.
From my own experience as taoiseach I am convinced that the near collapse of Aer Lingus on two occasions was a reflection of the failure of weak boards to ensure adequate management.
And I believe that the tragic disappearance of Irish Shipping in the mid-1980s would not have taken place if a board that included too many inappropriate political appointments had provided adequate management controls.
In government between 1982 and 1987, Dick Spring and I sought to tackle this weakness of our State enterprise system by insisting that all ministers clear proposed board appointments with the two of us in advance, thus enabling us to ensure that political appointments would be limited to not more than one, competent, political nominee to each board.
Only twice did we fail to meet our target - and I have to confess that one of our failures was Aer Lingus, where the political demand for posts that offered cheap air transport for the incumbent and his spouse prevented us from implementing our agreed limitation.
I also refused to allow any appointments to State boards in the interregnums after the elections of February 1982 and March 1987.
I had been horrified by the way some previous governments had abused their roles in this respect.
This was particularly so when the outgoing Fianna Fáil governments of June 1981 and December 1982 allowed Ray Burke to pack the crucially-important planning board with totally inappropriate appointments.
It may be recalled that on our entry to office, Dick Spring immediately reformed the whole planning board appointment system, overturning these inappropriate appointments and blocking possible abuse of the planning appeals system by any future governments.