ENDGAME CIE - The Worst Public Transport Provider in Europe Dies Here.

westtip

Nostradamus wrote: »

Political connections, private golfclubs, posh tennis clubs, rugby clubs, Freemasonic Temples, Rotary Clubs, Knights of Malta, Opus Dei, the right private school ties and many so called chartity organisations which are fronts for old boy networks?

If anyone else can give me an alternative scenario I am willing to hear it.

Nosty we think so alike - I haven't even looked back over this thread but my god your post says it all about the cosy relationship this network ties itself up in, and they call themselves the "political class" in which sons daughters nieces and nephews assume a rightful inheritance to positions of political power and influence. It is truly an obsenity.

serfboard

HydeRoad wrote: »

Can someone please explain to me, how, HOW, do these kind of people get promoted to such a high and influential level?

Bertie Ahern wrote:

I might have appointed somebody but I appointed them because they were friends

Full outrageous/hilarious text here.

westtip

Well reminded Serf, lest we forget this geyser actually believes he can be President....:D

Jim Martin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Get someone who runs a Swiss transport company to come in and take it over. Free range to make whatever changes they feel are necessary bar wholesale closures of routes that rural communities rely on as their only link.

You're dead right - but how many people responsible for public transport here appreciate the Swiss situation, and if they do, would they be prepared to admit it?

AlekSmart

Originally Posted by Cookie_Monster :

Get someone who runs a Swiss transport company to come in and take it over.

Well we actually DID do something like that...

We invited Senor Manuel Maynar Melis (3M) over from Madrid,Spain.
Now S.Melis had one major advantage over then Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan in that he (S.Melis) actually HAD devised,constructed and commissioned actuall Metro "stuff".

Senor Melis was well used to deadlines,budgets and actually getting "stuff" done whereas Seamus agus ná chairdí Fáil were simply far more comfortable talking about it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly,Sen.Melis`s views were taken on-board and he was wheeled out at a few Press-Conferences to add substance to Seamus Brennans image as a "doer" who was taking all the corect soundings.

However as soon as Sen.Melis had set sail across the Spanish Main,the "lads" in the Department quietly filed his report under C...for cojones...and thats where it lies today.

The bould Sen.Melis had perhaps taken a closer look at what was then the "Powerhouse" of the EU and went Hmmmmm :rolleyes:...before recommending that we keep it simple,stupid (K.I.S.S) and go for maximising the return on the Capital Expenditure with almost Zilch to be spent on fripperies.

I seem to recall a figure of €1 Billion as being the Spaniards estimate for Metro Dublina.....something our lads would guffaw loudly at.

Either way,we have what we have and will have very little more for decades now as we pump every spare cent into the pockets of less than 2,000 individuals connected with the "Building Industry" via the "Banking Industry" so we may continue to gaze in awe and wonderment at the works of fine fellows such as Manuel Melis,ie: stuff that WORKS and does`nt bankrupt the entire Nation !! :mad:

PS: There`s always Cork to look towards for salvation .....

http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=341

Nostradamus

AlekSmart wrote: »

Originally Posted by Cookie_Monster :


Well we actually DID do something like that...

We invited Senor Manuel Maynar Melis (3M) over from Madrid,Spain.
Now S.Melis had one major advantage over then Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan in that he (S.Melis) actually HAD devised,constructed and commissioned actuall Metro "stuff".

Senor Melis was well used to deadlines,budgets and actually getting "stuff" done whereas Seamus agus ná chairdí Fáil were simply far more comfortable talking about it.

The problem is that he got no more media attention than the McGuckians, Mayo Priests or that Metro the guy with no money said he was read to build.

Nostradamus

Please do not let this thread die.

CIE's story of secrecy and evasion

Sunday November 01 2009 Sunday Independent, Shane Ross

ONCE upon a time, there was a top- secret report. So secret was the report that it was never meant to see the light of day.

The report had a sheltered life until it tumbled accidentally into the public arena, courtesy of the Sunday Independent.

The report met lots of interesting people on its struggle into the public gaze. None of them seemed terribly anxious for the public to know about its contents.

Last week, the boss of Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail), John Lynch, appeared before an Oireachtas Committee to answer questions about it.

As a member of the committee, I asked the good doctor how much the report cost. The reply shot back: "The figure was roughly €50,000."

Which seemed reasonable value, but a little wide of the mark.

After Lynch's reply, there was a rapid whisper from the CIE spinner on his left. Dr Lynch moved swiftly to correct himself.

"Excuse me, I am told the figure is €450,000."

Perhaps he ought to have known.

It must have been a peach of a report. The cost probably sets a new Irish record.

Back in 2007, Irish Rail wanted to find out how bad the racket in its procurement arm was. So it asked consultants Baker Tilly to do the gig.

Baker Tilly did what they thought they had been told to do. And they did it exceptionally well. Indeed it appears that they were overenthusiastic. In a late draft of the report in May 2008, their total assessment of historic loss at Irish Rail -- as a result of the flood of malpractices -- was €8.7m. Irish Rail told them that they had gone beyond their remit. Irish Rail settled for a lesser figure of just €2.6m, claiming that they had never meant their hired consultants to do so much unnecessary work!

They dismissed Baker Tilly's €8.7m assessments of losses as "guesstimates".

So the €8.7m figure for losses "disappeared". The only figure that eventually appeared in the final report was the lesser €2.6m number -- the amount of proven losses.

It is difficult to prove losses at Irish Rail because so much of the documentation is missing.

So the situation at Irish Rail wasn't so bad, after all.

Next, the final Baker Tilly report travelled from the secretive steering committee to the CIE and Iarnrod Eireann audit committees in summer 2008. It was dynamite.

Down on the CIE audit committee it met some really interesting people. Unusually, for six months, the audit committee consisted of just two members. Such a tiny key committee must be another world record for a company with total spending of €1.2bn. Two audit committee vacancies remained unfilled at a critical time.

The most interesting person the report bumped into -- when it finally left the steering committee for the CIE audit committee -- was a guy called Paul Kiely. He was chairman of this committee of two.

Paul Kiely is the most powerful figure in CIE, second only to overall boss, Dr Lynch. He is chairman of three crucial committees -- audit, remuneration and finance.

But who is the real Paul Kiely?

Typically, the CIE annual report tells us nothing else about the 'P Kiely' that it lists as a board member and its multi-talented chairman.

So last week I had to dig a bit.

Paul Kiely is not any old accountant. Paul Kiely is a very powerful bloke. CIE's Paul Kiely is a master of figures.

In his autobiography, Bertie Ahern describes Paul as "one of my tallymen". In Shane Coleman and Michael Clifford's brilliant book Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia, Paul is one of Bertie's inner circle. Whatever his knowledge of railways, Paul the tallyman landed a plum job in CIE.

According to Bertie himself, Paul was even a dummy candidate in one his more cunning political ploys. Bertie reveals the inside story of Dublin Central by-election high jinks: "We had to play cute to get what we wanted... We put Paul Kiely's name in as a potential candidate and everyone assumed he was 'my' man. But just before the vote was taken, we withdrew Paul and threw our weight behind Tom Leonard."

A few years later, Paul Kiely was appointed to the board of CIE under Bertie Ahern.

Well, at least we have people like that on the CIE board. Guys who can, in the word of Paul's patron, "play cute".

Paul's audit committee of two was in no hurry to hand over the top-secret report to the full board of CIE. Indeed, according to Dr Lynch, the CIE audit committee and the Irish Rail equivalent took "four, five, six months" to release it to the full boards.

Why? Because according to him they were "digesting" the report. My guess is that the report was causing more than indigestion.

It caused paralysis. It got stuck.

There was no press release. There was no mention of it in the annual report. There is not a word about it in the auditors' annual statement.

The report was a hot potato, its existence hidden from the outside world. It remained with the board, highly "commercially sensitive". Too sensitive even for Transport Minister Noel Dempsey.

Mr Dempsey is the sole shareholder in CIE. He gives the sick semi-state company over €300m, just to keep it afloat. Not only did no one tell him about the findings, no one even told him about its existence. He heard about it from the Sunday Independent.

He almost immediately opened its contents to the public.

When I asked Dr Lynch why the minister was not told, he replied: "Ministers decide policy. If I was to go to the minister with every single conceivable problem I have, I would never leave his office."

Ho Hum. A €450,000 report. An €8.7m problem. No need to bother the minister with such trivia.

CIE responded to the revelations at the committee by dispatching the spinners onto the airwaves. They were adamant that the Sunday Independent was peddling untruths.

Perhaps they are relying on no one ever reading the report.

So perhaps a few examples of the findings of the report (even in its sanitised form) might help to convince impartial observers that CIE is a case for a clean-out.

The report is outspoken about the sudden 'clarification' in its terms of reference.

"Following receipt of clarification on our Terms of Reference from the Chief Executive of the Steering Committee, we can confirm that we consider it impossible to assess the full extent of the ACTUAL loss suffered by the Company... through breaches of procedures."

Decoded, we have had our wings clipped; the €2.6m figure is far too low. It goes on: "We have provided a monetary assessment of actual loss found (€2.6m) and consider, based on our findings, that there is a higher likelihood that further loss occurred in the period under review."

Like €8.7m, as appeared in the buried draft?

Sanitised as it is, Baker Tilly has still managed to issue a damning report about the health of Irish Rail. The diseases mentioned include collusion with vendors, manipulation of transactions, missing quotes, missing documents and fraud. They describe risk in crucial areas as "supercritical". They reveal that Irish Rail refused to provide the consultants with any future projected expenditure figures.

The top-secret report has plenty of journeys still to make. It will be fascinating to hear what the consultants, the CIE board and the minister have to say when they appear before the committee.

DWCommuter

CIE = Fianna Fail Gravy Train.

Judgement Day

DWCommuter wrote: »

CIE = Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour, Green Gravy Train.

Fixed that for you.

DWCommuter

Judgement Day wrote: »

Fixed that for you.

FFS. I was too slow there. Its probably because FF have been in power for the majority of CIE's existance.

You're right.

Nostradamus

Can Judgement Day or anyone with a good knowledge of rail history confirm to me what I was once told that a CIE/IE manager who had the nickname "Dr No" because he said "no" to every customer service request, actually had the audacity to modify the service on the Northern Line so his daughter could get to school and come home on time.

Is this urban legend or real?

Judgement Day

Sorry "No" can do but it sounds the sort of nonsense that went goes on alright.

Judgement Day

Had the misfortune to visit Bray station twice (!) today - place is a complete tip - unending building work, decreipt toilets, closed down bookstall (which saw almost continuous operation from the 1850s to early 1990s), the public bar - latterly a tearoom/cafeteria is once again semi-derelict and closed (surely a tenant could be found or perhaps they don't want one?). Caught the 17.25 (?) from Connolly/Enniscorthy - reduced to a 4 piece 29000 railcar and with masses of people standing and lots more trying to board and virtually empty after Greystones - 5 or 6 off in Enniscorthy and then it was extended to Rosslare Harbour despite not being timetabled to! Having not been allowed to close south of Arklow as they wished CIE/IE have degraded the service to such an extent it's a wonder anybody still uses it. I only did today as I had to visit Dalkey as well as Dublin. I now almost always use BE's cheaper, more comfortable, frequent bus service when travelling to Dublin.

nanu nanu

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=TRJ20091216.xml&Node=H3#H3