The Government is set to launch a massive legal and political battle to clear obstacles to major road and rail projects after the Taoiseach warned there would be no Dublin metro without such reforms.
Mr Ahern yesterday identified Irish work practices, environmental and planning rules, overpriced construction materials and high professional fees as the reasons why a Dublin metro was currently impossible to build. Unless Ireland could adopt the construction culture of Spain - where the Madrid metro has just been built at a ninth of the cost per kilometre of the original estimate for Dublin - there would be no metro built in the capital, he said.
The Government now expects a major confrontation with landowners, environmentalists, community groups and some politicians in the autumn when the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, will produce two Bills designed to deal with some of the obstacles to the metro and other infrastructure projects.
A spokesman for Mr Brennan confirmed yesterday that he planned to publish these Bills after the summer. Government sources said last night that alarm at the long delays and spiralling costs of all public projects had persuaded Ministers to try to face down such opposition.
Speaking at a press conference in Greece yesterday, where he is attending a European Council meeting, Mr Ahern made it clear that he saw the planning and environmental requirements to be met by major public infrastructure projects as too time-consuming.
He said that while the Madrid metro was built in three years, a similar project in Ireland had to "go through eight hoops, through all environmental, planning and blah blah blah, and every blah costs a few hundred million".
He said the head of Madrid's metro, which had been built at a fraction of the estimated cost of the proposed Dublin project, had identified other differences. "His people worked all year round, our people don't. His people worked all-round [24 hour] shifts, our people don't. Our cost base is higher than their cost base. Our materials are higher than their materials. Our professional fees are enormously different than their professional fees."
He said that after making changes for these factors, the costs of the Dublin and Madrid projects came quite close, although there was still a difference of €500 million. He believed this was due to "contingencies for wet days, dry days, frosty days, foggy days".
With the Government now saying it is willing to borrow for some infrastructure projects, the Taoiseach's remarks reflect concern whether value for money for such borrowing can be obtained. They also reflect fear that projects for which funding is available may be stalled in the planning and tendering process.
The first of Mr Brennan's Bills - a Dublin Metro Bill - is intended to deal with issues such as the fear that house-owners on the route will be entitled, under current law, to substantial payments.
The second Bill - a Critical Infrastructure Bill - would deal with issues affecting many road and rail projects, such as compulsory purchase orders, speeding up environmental impact assessments and setting up a special section of the High Court to deal with planning appeals.
The Bills are also expected to propose making it easier to force landowners to sell necessary land and allow for 24-hour tunnelling to speed up the metro project. Mr Brennan said the project could come back on the agenda if costs could be cut in this way.
Mr Ahern said the head of Madrid's metro company, Prof Manuel Melis Maynar, recently told him and other Ministers that he had finished the Spanish project in 36 months. "We were told ours would take 7½ years if everything went right and, as you know, rarely do things go right."
Prof Maynar had estimated that the construction cost for a Dublin metro should be less than half of the original estimate. Mr Brennan said earlier this week that an underground metro from the city centre to Dublin Airport could be built in less than a year for €3.4 billion or less if 24-hour tunnelling, shorter consultation periods and a new Dublin Metro Bill were introduced.
After pressure from the Minister, the original Railway Procurement Agency estimate of €4.8 billion for a 12km metro from Dublin Airport to the city centre was revised down to €3.4 billion.
Mr Ahern said the same unacceptable cost escalation applied in Ireland in relation to the long-running proposal to build a national stadium. "You can build a very good stadium practically anywhere for €200 million," he said. The private sector still said it could build and run a very good stadium for €200 million, and "hopefully it will".