Mr. Tobin has provided us with a written statement. Perhaps you will give a synopsis of that statement.
National Roads Authority - Annual Financial Statements 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 (Resumed).
Mr. Tobin, Chief Executive Officer, National Toll Roads, called and examined.
Mr. Tobin
Chairman and members will recall that the meeting of the committee on 26 September last dealt in considerable detail with the Adare-Limerick road contract award process which culminated in a conciliator's recommendation that a sum of £3.15 million be paid by Limerick County Council to SIAC Construction Limited arising out of, and-or in any way relating to, the failure of the county council to award the contract to the company. On that occasion I made a comprehensive statement available to members of the committee for the purpose of fully informing them of the matter and with a view to assisting their examination of the issues involved. In the course of my statement, I indicated that the authority had asked Limerick county manager to address the question of disciplinary or other action that may, in his judgment, be appropriate in this case having regard to the relevant circumstances and to ensure that effective tender checking procedures were followed in future. I also outlined a series of measures which had been taken or were being pursued by the authority such as strengthening practices and procedures with a view to minimising, to the extent possible, the risk of similar checking errors in future and the potential exposure of public funds.
I will outline to the committee the status of these measures. Procurement and contractual matters are the responsibility of a designated senior project manager within the authority. The individual concerned has extensive expertise in this area and it ensures that a more focused approach is brought to the procurement matters. Our in-house capability is supplemented, as appropriate, by recourse to specialist legal advice on contractual matters.
In October last the authority disseminated to national road regional design offices and local authorities a policy document dealing, inter alia, with procedures for the checking of tenders and highlighting the importance of matters such as measures to ensure the security of tenders prior to opening and prevention of interference with priced bills of quantities at any stage in the checking and tender award process, the introduction of independent checks to verify checks of tenders carried out by local authorities or regional design offices, the uniform adoption of electronic spread sheet rather than manual checks of tenders and greater standardisation of local authority practices regarding the publication of information relating to uncorrected tenders. A copy of the policy document was submitted to the clerk of the Committee in mid-October.
I am pleased to report that the measures indicated are being implemented. A particularly apt example concerns the proposal recently received by the authority from Limerick County Council for the award of the contract for the Limerick southern ring road phase one scheme. In that case the bill of quantities was checked by both Mungret regional design office and an independent firm of quantity surveyors. Electronic checking was adopted in both instances and this approach has brought a much greater degree of confidence to the tender checking process. The authority is currently piloting electronic tendering on a road scheme on the N5 where procurement procedures have commenced.
In addition, the authority has put in place professional indemnity insurance cover in relation to the services provided to the authority by local authorities and regional design offices in respect of national roads. The insurance provides cover up to a limit of £5 million in respect of any one claim against any regional design office and those local authorities outside the regional design office system. As regards consultants engaged in national road schemes, our procedure now requires that they have a minimum professional indemnity cover of £5 million.
The authority has formulated draft arrangements setting out responsibilities and relationships between the local authorities involved and between local authorities and the authority in respect of national road regional design offices. The document is under active consideration by county and city managers and I am confident it can be finalised in the near future. I assure the committee of the authority's determination to seek to prevent a similar failure in the future to that which occurred in the Adare-Limerick award process. The various measures I have outlined indicate our commitment in this regard.
I understand the Limerick county manager has submitted to the committee a report on the review he conducted into the tender award process in the case of the Adare-Limerick scheme and the conclusions he has come to. I am aware that his report on the matter makes a number of references to the relationship between his local authority and the National Roads Authority and in regard to the local authority's project staff and the NRA's technical advisers. These aspects are either largely addressed in legislation, specifically the Roads Act, 1993, or are being attended to in the context of the draft document on relationship arrangements to which I have referred, which are under active consideration by my authority and the county and city managers. The committee members should be aware that I am entirely satisfied that the references concerned do not in any way involve matters which might have contributed to the mistakes which occurred in the Mungret office on the checking of tenders. The authority personnel involved specifically requested that a second verification check be carried out by the Mungret office to confirm the accuracy of corrected tender totals in view of the small margin in prices emerging between the tenders during that process.
I take the opportunity to advise the committee of progress on the implementation of our national roads improvement programme as regards the ambitious targets set by Government in the National Development Plan 2000-2006. Key objectives in this regard involve the provision of motorway or high quality dual carriageway roads between Dublin and the Border north of Dundalk to Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. Work is particularly well advanced on the M1, while consultants are in place and planning is progressing well on each of the other four major inter-urban routes. The authority is also advancing the planning and procurement of projects on a great many other national roads in co-operation with local authorities.
The overall effort to significantly expand the national roads programme to the level necessary to deliver on the NDP objectives is reflected in the increase in expenditure which has occurred over a very short period. For example, spending on planning and design work has risen from £9 million in 1998 to over £37 million last year. Total national road expenditure in 1998 was £298 million. This has increased to £517 million last year. The trend is set to continue this year as the authority has received a total allocation of £660 million. We are confident that the scale of investment will be manifest in an unprecedented number of completions of important projects in the current year, including the Southern Cross route in Dublin, the M1, the Dunleer-Dundalk motorway together with the link to the N2 at Ardee and the bypasses at Blackpool and Claremorris.
The year will also be notable for the number of major projects on which construction will commence, such as the Dublin Port tunnel, the M50 south-eastern motorway, the Carrickmacross bypass and Enfield relief road, Ennis bypass, Limerick southern ring road phase one and the Sligo inner relief road. The authority is conscious of the responsibilities entrusted to it to develop and implement the most ambitious road improvement programme in the history of the State and to use the substantial funds allocated for this purpose to good effect. I assure the committee of our commitment to the realisation of both objectives.
For some reason, there is very little on my file in relation to this matter. I do not know when these documents were circulated. However, I am sure the clerk will state, with his usual efficiency, that they were circulated before Christmas. I may have received them at that stage, but I did not read them. The dates on a number of the documents indicate that they were only received in recent days. A great deal of the information in these documents arises from the discussions we held on 26 September, and one would need time to absorb it.
The net issue which arose on 26 September was that the committee was concerned that compensation of £3.15 million had to be paid out by the State and the local authority - of which the State paid the lion's share of this amount while the local authority paid only a fraction - to an unsuccessful tenderer on the basis of an error. On the last occasion we tried to discover whether Mr. Tobin was satisfied that an error had occurred. What conclusion has he reached in that regard in the interim?
Mr. Tobin
Perhaps I could repeat the view I expressed at that time, that it was my opinion, having regard to a joint report that had been prepared involving a number of staff members from the authority and, indeed, a member of the staff of Limerick County Council, that it was a mistake, albeit exceedingly unfortunate, but a mistake nonetheless - a human error. It seems, from my reading of the report of the manager, which has come to hand recently, that he likewise takes that view, that it was not a question of somebody deliberately setting out to do something untoward, but that it was a very unfortunate, particularly in terms of the costs involved, human error.
In terms of the changes that have been put in place in the meantime, are Mr. Tobin and the county manager confident that they will minimise the possibility of such an error recurring?
Mr. Tobin
I am indeed. My opening remarks touched on the fact that we now have in place a more formalised arrangement whereby there is a second check on all tenders coming in. In the case of tenders where there is a value of up to £5 million, that will normally be done by the individual local authority passing those documents to another local authority or to a regional design office outside its area for that check. Where the tender value exceeds £5 million, that check is done by a totally independent outside agency.
I mentioned specifically a recent case that came to us for approval in relation to the first phase of the Limerick south ring road. In that case, the Mungret regional design office carried out the first check. That was rechecked by a totally independent outside firm of quantity surveyors. This was different from the process that had been used in the checking of the Adare-Limerick project. In the recent case, the regional design office was using, if you like, an electronic spreadsheet type, as also were the external double checking people.
I would have far greater confidence now. Looking a little further ahead and, obviously, depending on the results of the first use of electronic tendering which is now in progress on a project on the N5, if that proves successful and a workable mechanism, the type of errors that arose and caused the difficulties at Adare-Limerick simply should not arise in future.
Mr. Tobin will recall that on the last occasion it was stated that it was anticipated that the contract would cost £33 million but that the final cost was £43 million. At that point, the county manager indicated that this was because of add-ons, namely, that there was a need to include some type of scheme to lay water pipes.
Mr. Tobin
That is correct.
A contract with an overrun of that nature - the original cost of £33 million was exceeded because of add-ons etc. - seems to make a nonsense of the tendering procedure. Is that the case?
Mr. Tobin
In an ideal world that element of the work which related to the water supply project should have been included at the time the tender documents were being prepared. Unfortunately, the scheme was not at a stage of development which would have allowed that. That additional work, from memory, ran to in the order of £5 million. It is not a charge on the National Roads Authority's funds, it will be financed in the normal way from the sources available to the local authority for its water projects. However, it did make sense, it would be fair to say, and we would accept the judgment that it would not have made a great deal of sense for the local authority to have allowed the road building contractor to progress and complete a lovely road surface only to find it was necessary to then allow another contractor to arrive in hot on their heels, dig it up and start putting in water pipes.
We all accept that the approach outlined is sensible. However, does Mr. Tobin take the point that if one thinks one is tendering for a certain type of contract one can undercut one's competitors, knowing that one will make one's money back in the event of extensive add-ons being attached to the project? Does he accept that this is not a desirable practice? Surely it was anticipated that the pipe-laying scheme would have to be carried out in conjunction with the construction of the road. It is surprising that the scheme was not included in the original tender.
Mr. Tobin
I made the point that the water project was not sufficiently advanced at the time tenders were being sought for the road scheme to allow that work to have been incorporated. You are absolutely right and I accept fully that, in the normal course of events, it would have been much better, had it been possible, to incorporate all that work at once.
We are increasingly conscious of the need to ensure that the bills of quantities for projects that are going to tender for national roads are all-inclusive and that every possible effort is made to ensure that the full extent of work required is described in them and, consequently, the extent to which additional works emerge in the course of the contract is kept to an absolute minimum. However, using the standard form of contract that we have traditionally used, there will always be issues such as price variation and so on that will give rise to additional costs. Being a remeasurable contract, particularly in the area of earthworks, with the best will in the world, occasions will arise when unforeseen ground conditions will emerge, even having undertaken a significant amount of site investigations, giving rise to the removal of quantities of unsuitable material and their replacement. There will be a certain amount of that under the normal form of remeasurable contract. As I said, however, every effort is being directed towards ensuring that the bills of quantities reflect, as best they can, the totality of the work required.
A lot of our projects - certainly in excess of one quarter of those in the existing programme, the national development plan programme - will be delivered either under PPP or, from here on, quite a few of them will be delivered on a design-build basis. Under that form of contract, it is the contractor who designs and accepts responsibility for any additions that arise in the course of the work.
In respect of this particular project, in so far as I understand from informal inquiries I made in the interim, it appears that the company in question, Pat Mulcair, is a reputable business. Am I to take it from the letters I have seen today that the name of the company has been changed? I thought it odd that somebody would embark on a contract of this order as a sole trader. Is there a precedent for this and what is the significance of the name change?
Mr. Tobin
My understanding is that in the past eight or nine months, and shortly before the meeting in September, the firm registered as a plc. As the Deputy rightly said, prior to that Pat Mulcair was a sole trader. That was the choice of that person and I do not have hang-ups about it. He would have tendered for a number of projects. He had a track record and had delivered. He has also provided the normal insurance and bonds which are required to safeguard the local authority, the NRA and the public purse generally in the event of difficulties arising in the course of the work he undertook.
You gave a figure for the number of contracts he was awarded by the same local authority. What is the approximate figure as a proportion of the value of the work?
Mr. Tobin
From memory, I think the totality of the contracts we identified in relation to national roads in which the regional design office in Mungret had a hand amounted to approximately £88 million or £100 million, while the total value of the contracts which found their way to Pat Mulcair was £34 million or £35 million.
He got a huge chunk of the work, it was more than one third.
Mr. Tobin
He succeeded in two contracts. The value of one contract was £33 million, while the other was, I think, £1.9 million.
Was his performance considered professionally acceptable?
Mr. Tobin
Yes. Another project in which he would have been involved was the Portlaoise bypass. Such work as I am aware of that he has done has been done in a professional, competent and capable way. I think he also undertook the Cavan bypass project.
The Mungret office will continue to function as a regional office under the new arrangement, but there is no manager designated to mind the totality of the——
Mr. Tobin
I think the Deputy misunderstood me. The person in charge of procurement is a person within the National Roads Authority. We have appointed a person specifically to oversee our operations and those of local authorities in their dealings——
The Mungret office will continue to function as a regional office and your man will oversee the total scene, including Mungret.
Mr. Tobin
Yes, in ensuring that the right processes are in place and are being operated.
As regards the programme of investment to which you adverted, what will be the order of a contract which will go out in future? Will it be substantially larger than has been the case?
Mr. Tobin
Yes.
Will it cut across county boundaries etc?
Mr. Tobin
It will be very much the case that contracts will cut across county boundaries. While it is fair to say that in its time the contract for Adare in Limerick at £33 million would have been perceived as very large, it will become reasonably commonplace in the coming years and within the national development plan to find contracts in the £100 million plus category, while a limited number of them will be in excess of £200 million.
Great care will have to be taken there——
Mr. Tobin
Absolutely.
——so that there is not a collapse or whatever. We had that experience at Rathcoole in Limerick.
Mr. Tobin
Unfortunately we did. In that instance - this would have been common practice for a long time - bonds were in place to ensure that the local authority had recourse to a bondsman who took over and completed the work.
In terms of the spokes of the wheel to which you referred, what is the order of their anticipated completion? Will the M1——
Mr. Tobin
Of the major inter-urban routes the M1 is far and away the most advanced. The M1 from Whitehall to the north of Dundalk will be open as a motorway by the end of 2003. To run quickly through it, there is a contractor in place for Cloghran to Lissenhall, while we expect that the contractor for Lissenhall to Balbriggan will be in place this year. As the committee knows, the Balbriggan bypass has been built and three contractors are in place, one of whom will take from north of the Balbriggan bypass to the Boyne crossing. A contractor is in place for the Boyne crossing and another contractor is in place from the Boyne crossing and the Dunleer bypass, which is in place. We expect the section from the Dunleer bypass to south of Dundalk to be opened by the Minister on 26 January. We expect construction on the western bypass to start towards the latter part of this year. We expect to see all those projects completed by the end of 2003. The motorway network from Whitehall to north of Dundalk will be fully built.
Obviously the other routes are not as advanced. To run through them quickly, the section of the Dublin-Galway route from the M50 junction to Leixlip, which we propose to widen to three lanes, is expected to be completed by the end of 2004. An interchange in the Celbridge area, which would facilitate the Intel and Hewlett-Packard operations and others in the area, is expected to be completed by the end of 2002. On the Kilcock-Kinnegad project, the Kinnegad-Enfield bypass is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, while the remaining sections from Kinnegad through to the Galway outer bypass——
When does that address the Enfield problem?
Mr. Tobin
We expect construction on the Kilcock-Kinnegad bypass, which includes Enfield, to start under a PPP arrangement by the first quarter of 2002, with a completion date around the middle of 2005.
What about the rest of the route through to Galway?
Mr. Tobin
The Athlone to Ballinasloe section and the Ballinasloe bypass is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, with the balance, which is Kinnegad to Athlone and from Ballinasloe to Oranmore and on to Galway, expected to be completed by the end of 2006.
On the Dublin-Limerick route, the section from Rathcoole to the county boundary will be completed by the end of 2004. The contract for the Kildare bypass has been awarded and we expect construction to start imminently. The date for completion is the first quarter of 2004, while the Monasterevan bypass, which cleared the statutory procedures hurdles prior to Christmas, is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2004. Castletown to Nenagh, which is effectively the end of the Portlaoise bypass to Nenagh, is expected to be completed by the end of 2006. The completion date for the Nenagh-Limerick section is 2005. The contract for the south ring road in Limerick, phase one, was recently awarded and the completion date is the third quarter of 2003. We expect phase two, the additional river crossing, to be completed by the start of 2005.
On the Dublin-Cork route, the Portlaoise bypass to Cullahill is expected to be completed by the end of 2005, while the date for Cullahill to Cashel is end 2006. The completion date for the Cashel bypass is the end of 2003, while the date for the Cashel-Mitchelstown and Mitchelstown-Fermoy sections is end 2006. The completion date for Fermoy-Watergrasshill is 2004 and for the Watergrasshill bypass the first quarter of 2003.
On the Waterford route, the local authorities recently approved the appointed consultants for two projects to complete the route. One of these will run from the end of what we refer to as the Kilcullen link, the motorway heading down towards Carlow, to in or about Carlow. The second project will be from Carlow straight through to Waterford. We have said before that we foresee some difficulty in delivering both of these projects by the end of 2006, which would be the ideal objective, but we are convinced they should be in place by mid-2007. That would clear up the totality of the major inter-urban network.
Regardless of where I am in 2004, perhaps the clerk will make a transcript of the minutes available to me so that I can check those latter points. There will be no relief for Enfield until 2005.
Mr. Tobin
There is a minor relief road commencing this year which will possibly take 18 months to complete. It will tie into the overall Kilcock-Kinnegad project. It will be of use in the short-term and will sit neatly with the overall long-term project which is coming along also.
I am astonished, given the growth in the economy, that the deadlines are so far away. Anybody, like me, travelling regularly to Galway would be depressed to hear that they must wait another six years before the road is completed.
Mr. Tobin
Bearing in mind that there are rather complicated statutory procedures which are there to——
Why are those procedures not being abridged? Planning lawyers have told me that this can be done. Why must one go through an environmental impact procedure for each county when the road crosses the country? Why can there not be the equivalent of an action plan for a road as in the case for certain areas? This is holding up the economy. It is even affecting the housing problem. These are very unambitious targets. Of course the feature of them is that they keep getting put back.
Mr. Tobin
Perhaps I could say in our defence that one must remember that in our first year of operations we spent £173 million and this year, six years later, we are spending £660 million. This programme has developed in a significant way in recent years, particularly in the past two years.
As I may have mentioned at previous meetings of the committee, we are taking strides to try to minimise the lead-in time between the concept and the arrival of the contractor on site. That is being facilitated to a great extent by the bringing into operation of sections of the Planning and Development Act, 2000, which transfers a number of functions, which impact on our programme, from the Minister's desk to An Bord Pleanála. I am talking, in particular, of issues such as CPOs for acquisitions for the motorway schemes and environmental impact approvals. Our expectation is that, where traditionally five, six or seven years was not unusual from the concept to the arrival of the contractor on site, we will see that reduced to something like three and a half years. We believe that is probably about as short as it can get because we must accept that individuals who are affected by these projects have rights. Indeed, the public generally takes an interest from an environmental point of view and an opportunity must be afforded them. There is an enormous amount of public consultation engaged in it, and properly so in my opinion. When these major projects are being designed, a number of opportunities are given to members of the public generally, particularly to those on whom the projects will have an impact. A number of opportunities are being afforded to them so that they can input to the process of selecting routes, which in some cases will have serious impacts on them once implemented.
Has land been acquired for the Galway road yet?
Mr. Tobin
The first section does not really require additional land. Basically it will be within existing fences. Any land necessary for the Celbridge interchange is in place. On Kilcock-Kinnegad, we expect the CPO to be dealt with next month. On Kinnegad-Athlone, we have not looked at the CPOs - we have still to come to that. The remainder of the route must be put through CPO or motorway process before land can be acquired.
To what extent have tenders gone to engineering and other contractors from outside the State?
Mr. Tobin
At this stage we have in place consultants or indeed in some cases, but to a very minor extent, local authority regional design offices. We have in place design operations for everything which we are required to deliver in this current tranche of work. That involves, if my memory is correct, nine or ten UK consultants and one French consultant.
In the context of our PPP programme in particular, we have been setting out our stall for foreign contractors. We have made visits to the UK. We have been to Portugal and Germany and have had visits from people from as far afield as the US and Turkey. We have done quite a job in lobbying foreign interests just to show them the programme and, I hope, attract interest.
That interest has been manifest. The first case I would mention is a very bad example in that it is the port tunnel in Dublin which would be expected to attract interest from foreign contractors because of its specialist nature. More recently, seven or eight non-Irish contractors have drawn documents on the tender processes ongoing for the south-eastern motorway. The closing date for tenders is 22 or 23 January but interest has been shown by seven or eight non-Irish contractors. Leaving aside the port tunnel, a recently awarded contract for the bypass at Watergrasshill has gone to a UK contractor.
With the publication of the national development plan, we recognised there were two areas where we perceived very serious constraints, questions which had to be responded to. The first was in the area of design. It is my view that at this point we have that pretty well under wraps. The other area is the capacity of the contracting industry to undertake the programme. We have made a good deal of effort, with some success in our view - obviously time will tell how successful we have been. We have at least spread the news abroad as to the size of the programme and the type of projects in the firm hope that that will give rise to interest by non-native contractors. That offers us not only additional capacity but, I hope, competition.
The first two PPP projects, if one leaves aside the Westlink project, are the Waterford project and the Kilcock-Kinnegad project. We have sought expressions of interest. Again from memory, in excess of 40 firms, many of which are non-native, have shown interest and looked for the relevant documentation.
Has there been a noticeable escalation in recent times in the cost per kilometre?
Mr. Tobin
Certainly, yes. Tenders in recent times have shown a considerable increase on those to which we had become accustomed. Clearly that is a concern, if it were to be a continuing trend. We are keeping our fingers crossed that to some extent what is happening is an adjustment. We would certainly take the view that, looking back two, three or four years, the tender prices we were receiving were very low. One could say they were rock bottom prices. The contracting industry, seeing the state of the economy and the extent of other work available, has adjusted its prices upwards. Our hope is that that to some extent may be a once-off adjustment and that it will not continue at the level we have seen over recent years. In answer to the Deputy's question, we have seen a considerable increase in the level of prices coming to us for major projects.
To complete the questions on the roads, when will the M50 sections be opened?
Mr. Tobin
The section now under way, the Southern Cross route, which runs from Balrothery or the Tallaght area through to Ballinteer, should be open by May-June. Tenders for the balancing section, that is the final section linking on to the Bray road, to which I referred, are due around 22 January. Our expectation is that it will be completed by quarter one, 2004.
Will that be two lane or three lane?
Mr. Tobin
As of now, it is two lane. We are looking at present at this overall question of the capacity of the entirety of that C-ring. In time, bearing in mind the numbers of vehicles using them, there is likely to be a need to expand the western sections beyond two lanes but that will require a number of statutory processes and environmental impact assessments.
It is clear that you should be already on that process. Much of the time it is a major headache to be on that road.
Mr. Tobin
In response to you, Chairman, I am listening attentively to what you are saying but, by way of some small consolation, the property acquisition for that section of road that is now there and the one that is about to start is sufficiently large to allow an additional lane to be put in without having to engage in further property acquisition.
That is the upcoming section.
Mr. Tobin
And that already in place. There is sufficient land at the central area of that to enable——
I would have thought that progress should have been made because there can be a large volume of traffic on that road, even at 11 p.m. When will construction of the new bridge commence?
Mr. Tobin
We assume tenders will be invited very shortly on that and that it should begin possibly in March-April.
The additional work carried out on the exits has been helpful. However, this is not adequate. Is it intended to persist with the use of roundabouts as opposed to flyovers or spaghetti junctions?
Mr. Tobin
A study is ongoing in relation to the capacity of that C-ring. One of the issues we will be looking at is the one you touched on earlier, which is whether we should expand to a third lane in both directions. Another issue is specifically the existing interchanges at, for example, the Red Cow and the King's Hospital. We think it very likely that a recommendation will emerge to have a further level of roads there which would put the through traffic——
A flyover.
Mr. Tobin
Correct, so that through traffic that does not need to interact at that point could be taken over directly.
That was the original recommendation made by the engineers employed by South Dublin County Council. Am I correct in stating, Mr. Farrelly, that it was turned down by the Department of the Environment and Local Government?
Yes, there was considerable debate at that time on that particular issue. All sorts of specialist advice was taken. Of course, I would hate to see decisions taken, say, back in the 1980s possibly being judged by a reference to the requirements of today, because the realities are that——
I take the point. However, given that we are discussing a main road, it is an extraordinarily short-sighted and costly decision. On the point raised by the Chairman, I do not understand the problem vis-à-vis the use of slipways from the M50 to the Galway road or from the junction at the Red Cow on to roads leading back into the city. Without being derogatory, I would have thought that a seven year old child would have known that a slipway would have been required to allow people to move from the M50 to the Galway road. It must have cost more to build the slipways than it did to construct the original road, particularly when one considers the length of time involved, the inconvenience caused etc. Surely that ought to have been evident at the time.
Mr. Tobin
Hindsight is a tremendous instrument.
I agree. At the same time, however——
I hope the new roads we are building will be sufficiently wide and that there will be adequate numbers of slip roads.
Mr. Tobin
It depends. A judgment is made in each case as to the likely volumes of traffic 20 or thereabouts years hence and an appropriate facility is then planned and implemented for that. I doubt that anybody 20 years ago would have assumed the volumes that are now using the C-ring in Dublin.
Yes, but I recall highlighting the drawbacks of using roundabouts as a solution and stating that flyovers should be used in certain places. I am not using hindsight here, the matter was raised at the time. There was also some question of creating flyovers at some junctions on the Naas Road such as those on the Long Mile Road and Newland's Cross. Has that plan been abandoned?
Mr. Tobin
With regard to the Naas Road within the C-ring - perhaps I am right in thinking that I have the same idea as yourself - the road that runs by the Long Mile Road is not part of the network for which the National Roads Authority is responsible. It is outside that and, indeed, that would cover Newland's Cross. At the moment we are not planning——
What about Kylemore Road?
Mr. Tobin
Kylemore Road, likewise, would be inside the C-ring. I hope I am right——
They are all inside the C-ring, or is Newland's Cross outside it?
Mr. Tobin
Newland's is outside. However, there are others within it and they would not be national roads.
What is proposed for Newland's Cross?
Mr. Tobin
At present I do not believe we have proposals to do anything at Newland's Cross. I am listening to you and I hear what you are saying, you believe that it should be grade separated in some way. However, as of now we are not progressing——
I was informed a number of years ago when I raised this question that there would be a programme of constructing flyovers at these junctions.
Mr. Tobin
Certainly beyond Newland's Cross——
We are told things and it later emerges that they are lies or they are not delivered upon. That is very frustrating. I am not stating that Mr. Tobin is at fault. However, I was informed three or four years ago that a programme of construction would be put in place. There is now a problem for the economy because people are obliged to travel for a number of hours to get to their place of work. Some of them will not work as a result, at a time when we are encouraging as many people as possible to enter the workforce.
Mr. Tobin
Taking from Newland's Cross, running outwards to the Naas bypass, the section as far as Rathcoole has been totally grade separated. The intention is, within the programme we are working to, that on the balance of that route, for example, where there are traffic lights at present at Kill and Johnstown, they will be all removed and there will be grade separation without traffic lights right through to the motorway.
That is extraordinary because Newland's Cross, the Long Mile Road and Kylemore Road are much busier intersections than those at Kill or the other locations to which Mr. Tobin referred. I would have thought it was even more urgent to take action in respect of the intersections located closer to the city.
Mr. Tobin
We are back into the DTO strategy. As one of my officials has, rightly, prompted me, within the Dublin C-ring——
Triangle traffic.
Mr. Tobin
——it is the intention that greater capacity should not be created. Within the C-ring, the two junctions you talk about, Kylemore Road and the Long Mile Road, are not within the remit of the National Roads Authority.
Newland's Cross is within its remit.
Mr. Tobin
Yes, but as of now we do not have a proposal to do anything with it.
It is extraordinary that no consideration has been given to it. One could ask questions about many of these roads, which are strangling the economy. Housing problems are being caused by lack of access because people do not want to travel for two hours to get to work. However, they are obliged to do so because of the slow pace of putting in place the roads infrastructure. I would have thought that an emergency plan would have been instigated to allow these projects to be brought forward. We are informed that projects will be concluded in 2004, 2006 or 2007, but the earliest of these is four years away from completion. That is ridiculous, particularly in light of the current situation. By that time, if the economy continues to grow at its current rate, the NRA's plans will be completely out of date. Some of those plans are already out of date. The cost to the Exchequer will increase as a result, which is a matter of concern for the committee.
Mr. Tobin
In our defence, bearing in mind that we have mentioned the size of schemes we are undertaking, three or three and a half years in construction is quite normal for the type of project we are talking about. We have geared up from relatively low levels of activity to quite high levels of activity. I think I mentioned, by way of demonstrating that, that in 1998 for planning and design preparatory work we were spending about £9 million. Last year it was £37 million. We are moving apace and we are trying to respond to the national development plan and the ambitious programme that is there. We believe that we have surmounted the first hurdle, which was in the area of planning. That involved the use of a considerable amount of, for want of a better term, imported expertise. The second hurdle is in the area of construction industry capacity where we have been using our best efforts to ensure that those beyond our shores are fully aware of the size of the programme. We are trying to bring their interest and involvement to bear on that to ensure delivery as well.
Mr. Tobin spoke about people's rights, which must, of course, be respected. However, that does not mean that it takes three or four years to address those rights. These matters can be addressed in a much more urgent fashion. For example, there was the famous problem involving snails on a fen in County Kildare. We might term these snails the "vexatious constituents" of Deputy Durkan. It seems ridiculous that the presence of snails could delay the construction of a road. We are informed that the problem has been resolved, but why could it not have been addressed much sooner?
It was called "the vertigo inquisitor".
Mr. Tobin
I suppose, put simply, we were not conscious of exactly what was involved at the time. In fairness, however, without wishing to be over-facetious, there were certain people who realised that when somebody called this place a "fen" we were probably in some difficulty. Objections were made, the issue was put in the hands of the Brussels bureaucracy and they took a very firm line in relation to ensuring that all relevant European regulations in this area, the environment, were fully complied with. Of necessity, we had to go with that. We dealt with it as quickly as we could through the use of much external expertise - hydrologists, ecologists etc. - and thankfully at this point we have resolved the issue and found a way, which we all believe and the European Commission accepts, we can undertake the project without adversely impacting on the fen, the aquifer and the other issues arising around the topic up to six or eight months ago. A contractor has been selected and appointed at this stage and our expectation is that he will be very quickly on site. I gave a date in the submission of early 2001.
I refer back to the factors that cause delays and address this question to the Secretary General. An environmental impact assessment must be conducted in respect of each local authority. Why is there not one EIA for the road? Is there any way the CPO position can be similarly bridged so that there would be one CPO for the road rather than conducting it on a county by county basis? Are there other problems in regard to planning laws for roads which could be addressed to minimise the delays while taking full account of people's rights but also not tolerating head-the-ball objections?
Mr. Tobin
Without in any way wishing to pre-empt what the Secretary General might say, perhaps it would be helpful if I made the point that for these long distance routes we are now going for significant chunks of work at a time but there is a balance to be drawn. Like it or not, any project that we seek to progress is liable to be challenged. The bigger the project the bigger the impact of the challenge. If we are dealing with a two mile stretch of road and there is some legal challenge, two miles are held up. If we are dealing with a 50 or 100 mile project and there is a legal challenge that is 100 miles held up. We are seeking to balance our efforts to get very sizeable projects so that we get the work ahead and indeed to make the work attractive to the major international contractors who may wish to come and do it. We move upwards in size but at the same time we do not want to go to a point where any challenge would knock a major lump out of our programme and delay everything on us.
Have you any comment on this, Mr. Farrelly? Is the Department happy with progress on roads given that there are deadlines of four, five and six years hence?
Going back to your initial query, Chairman, Mr. Tobin has dealt with it to some extent. There is no reason it has to be an individual section of road or an individual council or local authority. One can have one's EIS, motorway scheme or CPO procedure for any length one wants to provide for but, as Mr. Tobin has explained, if one gets the type of blip there was in Kildare, one is in trouble. The practice in the past has been with small segments of road. Let us face it. When the likes of the Kildare bypass was thought about, what was put into that was the maximum extent which could on any optimistic projection be financed at the time whereas today, rightly, one is going for much bigger sections of road. Let us be clear. We are seeing a plan today where funds are more freely available initially and if the Kildare bypass were built now one would take a much bigger section and one would take Monasterevan out of it as well.
As regards the procedures, every effort is being made to tighten up procedures. The NRA has tended to concertina certain procedures which were run as separate operations in the past. One is talking about all the issues involved, including land, EISs, CPOs, motorway schemes, tendering and bills of quantities. One must always strive to reduce it further but at the same time there is a time factor which is very hard to beat. The plus in the future is for larger, longer schemes.
Seven years into the future. Should the NRA not be doing that now?
Let us be clear on it. There is a culture of objections here. I said this before and sometimes people do not like one saying it, but there is a culture of objections which one has to take on board and deal with. In the case of Kildare, that arose after the statutory procedures were gone through. In those days we were probably more restricted as well because going back to some years ago one negotiated one's road scheme through the powerful interests within the EU Commission. We did not have the ability to say "If you are not prepared to fund it we will go ahead and do it ourselves" because we did not have the money. By and large the successes which were achieved in the late 1980s and early 1990s were attributed to EU funding and we were very much under its control.
There is a concern. The NRA programme is very ambitious. There is a sense of intolerance in looking at something which will take one, five or six years to remedy bearing in mind that one's problem is head on today.
It is seen as ambitious in the context of three years ago. It is not ambitious now. I am amazed, for instance, in terms of our economic development, that no major roads to the north-west are proposed, which is one of the most neglected and underdeveloped parts of the country. We did not hear anything today about the roads to Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan and Derry, Cavan and south Donegal and connections between Belfast and the rest of the country to try to open up Monaghan, Cavan and the midlands to the west and the south as if Belfast was not important. It is not ambitious.
I would like Mr. Tobin to expand, which I have no doubt he will. It is not true that there are no plans or proposals for the north-west. I hope I am right on that.
When the plan was published, it included a map of Ireland. The proposed roads on it went to Belfast, Galway, Limerick and Cork and the south-east and there was nothing for the north-west. It was as if the north-west did not exist. Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, north Mayo, Cavan and Monaghan are grossly underdeveloped, not to mention the need from a national point of view for connections to Derry and between Belfast and the rest of the country. They are totally lacking in what you call an ambitious plan. If we are to have real economic development, bearing in mind the recent transformation, these issues ought to be well advanced but they are not. They will end up costing us more money in future because of the lack of forward planning now.
Any time the NRA comes before us we have a problem. Between paying county councils for jobs they did not do and compensating a builder who was not awarded a contract because of apparent mistakes by a local authority, I am troubled greatly. I am not satisfied with the chief executive coming before me to explain the reason for these failures. I must reflect on what more we will do about this because we cannot let it go and say we are satisfied with the assurances we have been given. I am not satisfied and I will examine what else we should be doing about this.
Nobody in the NRA or in the local authorities involved has been disciplined. Nobody is ever called to account. There are no consequences for these gross errors. That is something this committee will not tolerate. We will not be plámásed with explanations for failure. The Limerick case cost £3 million. It is unsatisfactory. We will not note the accounts of the NRA so that I can give further consideration to whether we should make a special report to the Dáil on the problems we have been having and seek special measures in this regard.
I have a number of questions. I note the points made in reply to Deputy Rabbitte on the Limerick case and the discussion on the previous occasion the issue was before the committee. Are the NRA and the Department of the Environment and Local Government satisfied that a similar scenario will not recur? I note the reference to hindsight being 20:20 vision. Like the Chairman, I am a little concerned about that. I am sure it was asked at the previous meeting at which I could not stay long enough because I had to attend another committee meeting at the same time, but I wanted to ask on that occasion how it arose that the lowest tender had to be taken in the case under discussion.
Mr. Tobin
It would be normal practice, assuming one has a competent contractor with a track record and so on and capable of doing the job, that one would accept the lowest tender. On the basis that it represents the most economically advantageous bid available to be accepted, that would be pretty standard.
Is that the standard procedure at all times?
Mr. Tobin
It would be standard procedure, yes.
Is Mr. Tobin sure about that?
Mr. Tobin
Certainly in the area of operation that I have been in, yes.
In all operations by local authorities carried out under the aegis of the Department of the Environment and Local Government?
Mr. Tobin
I can only respond for the operation of the National Roads Authority.
I ask the Secretary General, Mr. Farrelly, if that is true?
Yes, it is an EU requirement that it is the most advantageously economic tenderer who must get the job. If we are talking in terms of tenders for consultancy, whether by Departments, local authorities or whomsoever, that is a different matter because one is assessing it by reference to what one is getting, which can be different. There can be huge variations in tenders for consultancy and they must be analysed by reference to what each proposes to do. Generally, the lowest might be anything but the best in so far as what one wants to achieve.
Where construction projects such as the one under discussion are concerned, if one is operating in the private sector, one has the right to draw on all sorts of experience which may be filed away in one's pocket which makes one say: "There's no damn way I'm going to take that particular person". If one is in the public sector, one must look on it by reference to the tender and it falls to the most economically advantageous. Except where there are questions as to the competence of the contractor to do the job or other such matters, the lowest tender must be accepted. This gave rise in the Limerick case to the situation where SIAC was in a position to claim that, if the right sums were done, it would have been the most economically advantageous and it would have been the lowest tenderer. Therefore, it should have got it in the first instance and it had to be compensated. That is the law.
The theory was that another tender was lower than SIAC's until such time as it was challenged and it was proved to be correct.
That is right, yes.
On the procedures adopted by local authorities and the Department of the Environment and Local Government and overseen by the National Roads Authority, notwithstanding the documentation we have received, to what extent have procedures changed? I note, for example, the reference in the recommendations to electronic checking for all tenders of more than £5 million. However, could three or four tenders of £5 million each be associated with one contract by way of a sub-contract?
Mr. Tobin
When a job is tendered for——
The overall contract is tendering.
Mr. Tobin
——every item that is required to be delivered has been priced and has a bottom line value. Each of those tenders coming in will be then put through this process of spreadsheet checking. In the case of contracts up to £5 million, a second check will be carried out.
For the sake of discussion, let us say a tender arrives into the Tramore design office and is not more than £5 million. The checking will be done using a spreadsheet methodology and, perhaps, a regional design office in Cork will be requested to do a further equivalent check on that. Where the value of the tender exceeds £5 million, that second check is an external check. In the case of the Limerick south ring road, that was carried out by a firm of quantity surveyors as a double check on the checking that would have been done within the local authority or the regional design office.
It still failed to——
Mr. Tobin
That process is new. This is one of the changes that have come about as a result of the occurrence on this particular project.
Who is aware of the tenders? Who becomes aware of them? To what extent do the tenders and their extent, scope and scale become public knowledge? For example, if a local authority awards a contract for £50 million, £100 million or whatever, to what extent do members of that local authority know what the tender contains?
Mr. Tobin
Practice will vary from local authority to local authority. Some would have by-laws to deal with this issue of opening and dealing with tenders.
Why does it vary between local authorities? Surely there should be a universal procedure.
Mr. Tobin
It is a procedure in which there is scope for the introduction of by-laws. It is a reserve function. The members of each local authority, if they so choose, have the option.
What procedure operated in this instance?
Mr. Tobin
In this instance, it would have been the practice that, having opened the tenders, each member of the local authority was advised of the values of tenders that had been received.
Each member collectively or individually? How was it done?
Mr. Tobin
Individually. They would have been advised individually of the sums that were on the tender documents as received. I make the point that they would have been uncorrected sums. It would have been simply taking the documentation as it emerged from the envelope and giving the value of that tender before any visit on it to see if mathematical or arithmetical errors had occurred in the preparation.
Why was the procedure to individually inform members? Why not inform them publicly?
Mr. Tobin
Those are the by-laws that the elected members of that local authority have adopted.
I am a little uneasy about that. I see a problem in the event of individual local authorities having their own procedures for dealing with tenders. That may well be the subsidiarity applied to local authorities. At the same time, the same rules should surely apply and the same procedures be followed throughout the country. If a procedure does not work, change is needed.
On that point, the fact that it is not on the agenda for a local authority meeting means it does not necessarily get into the public forum and media unless a councillor raises it.
Correct.
Consideration should be given to ensuring that, because public moneys are involved, when members of local councils are informed, regardless of their by-laws, the media is also notified.
It should be open, transparent and publicly done because too much money is involved.
We should make that a recommendation of the committee in this respect.
I would not be happy with the procedure of secrecy. I am aware of that practice as I was a member of a local authority. I am not happy about it because all the decisions taken and approvals given by members of a local authority are not on the basis of individual advice to the manager, secretary or anyone else but on the basis of the collective decision of members of a local authority taken at a meeting. If we can, we should do better than that. I would not be happy with the procedure outlined previously.
Mr. Tobin
I am concerned that the Deputy has the impression that elected members were evaluating tenders. That was not the case.
That is not the point.
Mr. Tobin
It was simply that, at the time of opening and having regard to the by-laws in place——
That is not my point.
Mr. Tobin
——they were made aware of the value of the bids that had been opened without having been corrected.
If a contract is awarded by a body of which one is a member, such as a board of directors, what would the board prefer? Would it prefer to be told of a £50 million tender or the success or otherwise of tenderers on the basis of confidential advice given by the chairman of the board or the chief executive or would it prefer to have it presented to it at a meeting of the board where it would be told what had been received and whether a decision had been made? It is nothing more than that. It is just so that they know. It is no harm to know.
Mr. Tobin
I am assuming that, at the appropriate time, the elected members of any local authority where a major contract is being awarded would be so advised.
Suffice to say this committee is very seriously concerned about the lack of accountability of local authorities, particularly in view of the fact that more than half the money comes directly from the Exchequer. We have raised this issue repeatedly. There are no performance measurements against which they are measured. In this era of accountability many of these issues have to be highlighted and addressed.
In your case you are just dealing with local authorities according to rules, many of which they laid down themselves. That creates its own difficulties and you cannot answer for local authorities per se, I suppose. In any case the issue is wider and that is why I want the committee to address it. We are not just talking about the NRA but we are going to look at the auditing and reportability of local authorities. We have already made this proposal and there will be a meeting of the working group or task force, whatever it is called, in two weeks on the audit issue. Are there any other questions?
Unfortunately I stumbled onto the issue of National Toll Roads earlier. The receipts from National Toll Roads are about 25% higher than expected. Chairman, you raised the issue of the M50, its capacity, the junctions, the capacity of the N7 and N9, or M7 and M9, or whatever they are called nowadays. I remember telephoning the Department of the Environment when the M50 interchanges on both sides were being designed. When I saw what was emerging I could not believe that, in this day and age, we were installing roundabouts at the confluence of four or five roads. This practice was obsolete and no one was doing it anywhere else in the world. I could not understand it and I raised this issue at the time. We are not raising this issue now with the benefit of hindsight as we raised it at the time but no one took any notice of us. For some reason which I do not understand we are supposed to be less enlightened than those who make these decisions.
I wish to put something else to Mr. Tobin without the benefit of hindsight. He has rightly indicated that he is going to remove all the interchanges and incursions on the N7 or M7, whatever it is, national primary route between Dublin and Naas. At the same time he is saying nothing about the western route - Chapelizod, Leixlip and all the other bypasses where there is a series of traffic lights along the road. Is there a difference between the manner in which traffic runs south and west? Why does the same vision which has suddenly befallen the Department not also apply to the western route? The Chairman has referred to the fact that every morning and evening there are tailbacks as far as the eye can see at all the traffic lights.
Palmerstown is a case in point.
No one knows why it is like this. I cannot understand why the same rules do not apply to the N4. I will make one last point, Chairman, and then shut up as I feel I am becoming a crank, but that is out of sheer frustration. Someone painted the surface of the outward bound section of the M50 after the realignment of the junctions and it is an improvement. It should have been done before but it is now done and that is fine. If one follows the right hand lane one finds oneself in a cul de sac at the far side of the M50 roundabout on the Palmerstown bypass. I cannot understand this. Someone decided to change it. There are chevrons on the other side - on the right on waste space which is not needed for anything. I do not know why this was done but it means traffic is constantly crossing other lanes to get into the left hand lane. This encourages more traffic to speed up the right hand lane, converge at the last minute and cut in on traffic in the centre lane. Someone should look at this issue. It is a safety issue and a cost factor.
What location is this, Deputy?
The M50 junction at Quarryvale. If one is travelling west and one stays in the right hand lane one discovers the markings are suddenly for the M50, northbound, so one has to get into the left hand lane. This change has only taken place within the past six months. If one is coming in the opposite direction one can stay in the right hand lane which takes one in a straight route off the road and eliminates the problem of traffic crossing while on the roundabout. The critical factor on a roundabout is to make sure that as little traffic as possible crosses from one lane to another.
Mr. Tobin, will you look at this issue and communicate with the Deputy?
Mr. Tobin
Yes, Chairman. Perhaps if I telephone the Deputy we can see exactly what he is referring to.
The rest of my point concerns the planning of roads for the future. With the exception of two roads, not one extra road has been built in this country in the past 150 years. That is a sad fact. I recently travelled in a cortège from Waterford to Carlow which is one of the most dangerous roads on which I ever travelled. It is a disgrace and it is unbelievable. The road has a smooth surface and that is fine, but there are blind bends every few hundred yards, accident black-spots and warning signs everywhere. It is awful.
I have been traversing some of the county roads in Kildare and there are many potholes. I was at a funeral which travelled from Rathcoole to Celbridge via Kill, and I was astonished that there were so many potholes on the county roads in the Minister for Finance's constituency. It is astonishing.
Some of the DTO's strategy clearly contradicts the NRA's strategy. For example, the NRA recently completed the widening of the Naas road from two lanes to three in each direction from Newlands Cross outward. A few hundred yards nearer Dublin is the M50 intersection, but the Luas proposal will reduce the same road to one lane. It is clear there is no overall planning and there will be chaos on that road.
Similarly, there is a road rationing philosophy within Dublin city which is at variance with what most people see as good sense. Islands are being built, half of which have to be removed and the other half should be removed as they will cause accidents. There are no proposals for an underpass or an overpass. The policy is mad given the increase in the number of cars and the fact that we have not yet reached the European level of car ownership.
There is a one-dimensional policy for traffic in Dublin city which does not take account of the realities. I urge that some overview is urgently taken of the DTO's and Dublin Corporation's traffic policy which is one dimensional and is bound to fail. It also contradicts what we and the Oireachtas are urging of the DTO. Have you any comment on that?
We are into a totally different situation. In so far as DTO policy in the city is concerned, the view is that the building of roads will not solve the traffic problem in a city context. Hence the policy is not to build additional roads within the city centre system. In other words, one cannot provide for a system which provides unlimited access to vehicles in the centre of the city. Allied to that——
Where in the world has that crazy policy worked? Have you ever been in any city in Britain or France where they tried to operate the policy you have just enunciated? Does it work anywhere?
Most European cities have restrictions on the extent to which cars can circulate in the city centre. This has to be done within the context of the development of a proper public transport system. I make no apologies for using the term "proper public transport". Hence the difference. If one is talking about the south side of Newlands Cross one is into an arterial national roads system where the road has been built up to three lanes. Chairman, you are obviously talking about the Red Cow area where the Luas impinges on the road, and that is unfortunate from a road viewpoint.
That is a very cavalier attitude, if you do not mind me saying so. We have just spent millions of pounds of public money, for which this committee demands accountability, on widening a road a few hundred yards away from the M50 at the Red Cow. We are now about to narrow the road on the other side of the M50. This is a waste of public money and goes to show there is no overall plan or thinking. I return to the other question. I am not suggesting we build more roads in the city, but we need proposals for junctions, including underpasses and overpasses. Other cities such as Paris and London, and smaller cities, have public transport systems which we envy, but they also have underpasses and overpasses. We are trying to do the impossible through not having a proper public transport system, also managed by road rationing. It is a totally mad policy.
In mentioning road rationing the Chairman has hit on what has to be a significant part of the solution to the problems. Road pricing and road rationing become inevitable in terms of dealing with the traffic in the city. However, it has to be related to the development of an effective, thorough public transport system.
Sure.
The danger is that certain things may be happening in the short-term in achieve medium-term objectives, which really are dependent on the development of a public transport system which has to be medium term.
Regardless of the public transport system - there has to be more progress in that regard - the idea that Dublin's traffic problems can be solved, even with a public transport system, by deliberately narrowing lanes on roads and building convoluted islands, sometimes in dangerous positions on roads which are liable to cause accidents and some of which have already had to be removed, without contemplating one underpass or one overpass is a crazy policy. Take the question of abuse of public funds. How many islands have been built in Dublin in the past two or three years which have had to be subsequently removed? How many more are demanded to be removed? This is a waste of public funds and in several respects they are in dangerous places. There is one on the Templeogue Road which will cause a major accident one of these days. About three times I have seen cars at Rathgar cross not sure which way to go and going both sides of the island, nearly crashing into each other. There is some maniac loose in Dublin who is designing these - I am not in the least bit apologetic for using such a strong word - and there is no accountability.
It is also important to note that for some unknown reason the effort seems to be to impede the flow of traffic——
Yes.
——whether it be public transport or other vehicles. There are extraordinary cases. We should be emphasising the speeding up of things. Dublin is not the biggest city in the world, and people are suggesting it is unique. Boston is of similar size and the people there have managed to resolve their traffic problems while having quite an amount of vehicular traffic on their roads.
I feel we are wasting our time because we are not getting any response. This is a very bad day for the Department of the Environment and Local Government. There are problems with everything we are looking at and it is not near reaching the performance we expect as the elected representatives of the people. We get the blame for non-performance. This is in the context of housing, roads - litter was not even mentioned - water pollution etc. There is no sense in us exercising ourselves anymore and we will adjourn this hearing until 8 March 2001. The NRA hearing will be adjourned until a date to be fixed by the committee.
The witnesses withdrew.
The committee adjourned at 5.25 p.m.