asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he has engaged the services of management consultants to review the operations of CIE; if so, the name of the firm involved; and the fee being paid to them.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Engagement of Management Consultants.
9.
As I indicated in the course of the passage through the House of the Transport Bill, 1970, a joint committee comprising representatives of my own Department, the Department of Finance and CIE has been set up to investigate the deterioration in CIE's financial position and to identify possible corrective measures. The consultancy firm of McKinsey and Company, Incorporated, has been engaged since mid-December to assist the committee in its task. The consultants' report is expected within the next month or so. The terms of appointment provide for professional fees of about £7,500 a month, plus out-of-pocket expenses such as hotels, travel and report production.
Could the Minister give any idea of what the total fee is likely to come to?
The Deputy can work it out himself. I expect the final report to be supplied to me in the next month or so. I appointed them in December so if the Deputy multiplies £7,500 by the number of months from December to March he will be near enough to the answer.
I do not know what hotel they will be staying at.
That is a rather cheap comment in view of the very serious purpose we are trying to achieve.
Might I ask the Minister if he considers a fee of £7,500 a month to be a cheap fee or a dear fee?
If this investigation clarifies the matter for this House and the country generally—I hope this is a matter outside the realm of party politics—and helps to form a basis for a national transport policy on which we can make firm decisions, I think it is money very well spent. I shall be before the House with this matter after the Government's consideration of the report and I hope that at that stage we can have a realistic rather than a cheap discussion.
May I ask the Minister whether the services of this firm were requested by CIE or imposed on CIE by the Minister?
They were requested by the Minister for Transport and Power in consultation with the Minister for Finance in the interests of the community with the aim of achieving a realistic assessment of the future in regard to our transport policy.
Further arising——
I am calling Question No. 10. We cannot discuss this matter all day. The Deputy has had three supplementaries.
I have been accused of making cheap political statements on this serious matter. I just want to ask the Minister if it is now the position that he is satisfied that there is not within CIE itself the ability or the intellectual standard needed to review and recommend a solution for their problems?
This, I would emphasise again, is supervised by a joint committee of the Departments of Finance and Transport and Power and CIE and in my view this is what the Government and Ministers are there for—to ensure that an outside view be brought to bear on the particular transport undertakings of our national transport organisation and in the light of that report we can make considered decisions and bring them before the House after Government consideration for legislative action.
Could the Minister say how many previous inquiries into the economics of CIE were carried out and what was the cost?
That is a separate question. The Deputy will have ample opportunity inside the next few months of fully debating the matter.
(Interruptions.)
They were done by the Tánaiste to put it all in order for ever.
The House should get out of its parochial attitude. This is a matter that is causing concern to every government in the world.