Little confidence CIE can deliver reliable services

New trains and buses cannot take from the fundamental troubles facing CIE and its passengers. So while gleaming vehicles and rolling stock can be seen on certain routes, there is little confidence that the group can deliver speedy, reliable services. Evidence suggests the opposite.

Excluding Britain, such efficiency is expected as the norm elsewhere in the EU - and has been for decades.

In the Republic, however, chronic under-investment and industrial strife means crisis is never far from CIE.

Inconvenience and discomfort are a risk for those who depend on its services. Customers are accustomed to unexpected cancellations, delays and overcrowding.

For example, no amount of feel-good advertising could persuade passengers on the Sligo-Dublin rail route last week that choosing public transport was wise - they were advised to wear extra warm clothes and bring hot drinks after the heating system on both trains serving the route failed. No catering services were offered.

While the group can reasonably claim that gridlock on the roads causes bus network delays, failure to maintain the rail fleet is its own responsibility.

The traffic crisis is why the Government will invest £2.2 billion in the National Development Plan attempting to improve what CIE terms the "huge quality deficit" in its services.

Such a commitment is in marked contrast to policy throughout the 1980s and 1990s when cash-starved governments always emphasised rationalisation.

The size of the Government's investment indicates it recognises that persuading people to use public instead of private transport depends on the availability of high-quality services.

Doubts persist, however, about the group's ability to deliver on significant investment. Independent reports last year questioned its project management on expensive programmes to improve rail safety and signalling.

CIE claims its project management has improved, although political manoeuvres suggest the Government is concerned to secure a good return on its expenditure.

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, plans to appoint a senior civil servant to the group's board to monitor implementation of the project.

Her spokesman said last week that size of the Development Plan investment merited Civil Service involvement. Yet CIE's chief executive, Mr Michael McDonnell, who is most likely to be replaced on the board, was a senior civil servant before his appointment.

Mr McDonnell and Ms O'Rourke are not close - and her unusual appointment last year of a full-time executive chairman, Dr John Lynch, is seen as reflecting this. Full-time chairmen are not generally appointed to groups with full-time chief executives.

Of course, politics has always dogged CIE, which received a Government subsidy last year in excess of £150 million.

For example, Ms O'Rourke's latest plan is to separate its three operating companies - Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann and Iarnrod Eireann - opening some services to competition.

CIE would cease to exist under this plan, which was introduced with gusto last year. Yet implementing it will be difficult - and possible only in the long term.

With last month's Budget seen as clearing the decks for a General Election this year, all bets will be off if the Government is not re-elected.

If Ms O'Rourke and her colleagues are returned to power, the crucial issue will be managing CIE's volatile workforce. Badly paid and deserving more, according to the group's human resources manager, staff crippled its services on a number of occasions last year, leaving stranded passengers angry and frustrated.

There are no easy solutions to CIE's problems. Industrial relations will counter political will - and delivery of the National Development Plan will demand a degree of management flair not usually in evidence.

Meanwhile, the group's consulting division advises on public transport in central Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union. Its most recent highlight was securing a contract for the privatisation of the Tanzania Railway Corporation. Whether the trains run on time in the east African state is unknown. But at least passengers there are unlikely to need hot drinks and leg warmers.