Consultancy gridlock holds up O'Rourke

Coras Iompair Eireann is not noted for respecting its customers' intelligence, but the State transport company hit a new low last week. In a rather clumsy attempt at spin-doctoring the group attempted to link a £45.2 million increase in its annual subsidy to the "gridlock" gripping the streets of our cities. The press release breaking the bad news was headed "CIE's annual report for 2000 shows subvention up £45 million but gridlock now costing bus companies £40m". The inference being that a 40 per cent increase in the hand-out the company gets from the State each year was due to factors beyond the company's control.

Even a cursory examination of the accounts of CIE and its three subsidiaries indicates the link between soaring deficits and gridlock is far from certain. Take Dublin Bus, which one would have to presume was the worst victim of gridlock. Its operating deficit rose from £10.2 million to £25.6 million.

The main reason for the increase was not - as we were led to believe - because the company had to buy more buses because they were getting caught up in the morass that is Dublin city-centre traffic. The main contributor to the higher deficit was the increase in payroll and related costs. Dublin Bus's wages and salaries bill jumped from £63.4 million to £76.5 million, an increase of £13.1 million, which pretty much accounts for the entire increase in the operating deficit.

In case you are thinking this must be due to the hiring of hundreds of new bus drivers, here is another figure. The total headcount at the company rose from 3,004 to 3,093. So unless Dublin Bus is paying 89 new bus drivers the equivalent of £150,000 a year, it is clear that the lion's share of the pay increase went to the existing workers.

The rest of the increase in the deficit at Dublin Bus would appear to be accounted for by an increase in materials from £8.6 million to £10.4 million and something called "other services" which went from £9 million to £11.6 million.

The pattern is repeated across the group. The deficit at Irish Rail jumped from £64 million to £103 million, of which £12 million was down to increases in wages and salaries. It is worth noting that gridlock must be good for Irish Rail as it drives people out of cars and buses and onto suburban rail and the DART.

Taking CIE as a whole the wage bill grew by £33 million to £267 million while headcount went from 11,014 to 11,423. It is apparent that spiralling wage costs and not gridlock are the problem at CIE.

When you consider that CIE appears to have granted its workers these pay rises in return for no tangible improvement in the industrial relations stalemate that is stifling reform, you begin to understand why they dreamt up the gridlock theory. It also goes some way towards explaining why, for the third year in a row, the company has declined to hold a press briefing when publishing its results. It should be a cause of some embarassment to Mr John Lynch, the executive chairman who prides himself in his no nonsense approach to business.

But ultimately responsibility for the worsening situation at CIE must rest with the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke. A reply given last month by Ms O'Rourke to a Dail question about what plans she has to re-organise CIE, best descibes the Minister's position. During the course of the 400-word answer the words "consultant", "consultation" and "consultancy" are used in almost every paragraph.

Before taking anything that might remotely resemble definitive action to re-organise CIE the Department is consulting the Public Transport Partnership Forum on the issue. For those who are unaware of its existence this body was established under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. The forum has itself hired consultants to look into the issue and must review their work before it can conclude its consultation with the Government.

Meanwhile, the Department has also consulted with the forum on whether it should hire some consultants of its own "to carry out a research study" on the proposed restructuring. Operating in parallel to all this orgy of consulting there is also a "small top-level group" at Irish Rail doing things like "investigating the current industrial relations environment".

Finally another batch of consultants is being hired to "carry out a study " on the options for the regulatory reform of the bus market outside Dublin. One can only hope that more consultants will be required in due course to study the "impact" of the options that this first group of consultants will eventually come up with.

One thing is conspicuous by its absence from the Minister's answer. It is the word "decision". The gridlock CIE really has to worry about is the consultancy gridlock that is paralysing the Ministerial office suite on Kildare Street.

jmcmanus@irish-times.ie