2026-04-30

98. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Transport for an update on the new Irish Rail traffic management IT system; the measures he is taking to address cost overruns and delays; when he expects this system will be delivered; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31154/26]

I want to ask the Minister about documents recently released to the Committee of Public Accounts relating to cost overruns in the IT system that was supposed to regulate train movements across the State. Under the initial proposals, the traffic management system was targeted to be commissioned in 2024 with an associated target cost of €19 million. However, over €31.5 million has apparently already been spent without the first phase having been completed. Has the Minister of State any statement to make?

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and acknowledge that this is an elongated process. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, has been engaged with the process on behalf of the Department and twice met the people involved. The Deputy can take it from our side that we are not happy with progress, and I will come back on that further in the supplementary. The national train control centre, NTCC, project aims to deliver a modern, safe and efficient rail traffic management system that can effectively meet the needs of a growing railway service in the coming decades. The NTCC building near Heuston was completed in November 2022, close to its initial target date and budget despite the significant disruption to the construction caused by Covid during its development. Bringing the centre into full operation has been delayed by slower-than-projected progress in developing and rolling out the new traffic management system, which is the software that integrates a range of complex railway systems, such as signalling and communications. As a result of these delays, the Minister met the NTA and the contractor responsible for the traffic management system, Indra Sistemas, last August and later on to express dissatisfaction with the rate of progress and emphasised the importance of project delivery. The Minister met them again in January at the opening of Indra Group's office in Dublin, which marked an important positive development for the project in terms of Indra's permanent presence in the Irish market and reiterated the importance of successfully progressing the project. I understand that Iarnród Éireann has been actively engaging with Indra and testing software ahead of a major release in July, with commissioning phase 1 covering the Rosslare line targeted to go live in 2027. The timeline for future commissioning phases will be informed by phase 1, and the Department and the Minister will continue to keep the project under close review with a view to bringing its benefits to railway users as soon as possible. It is important to note that traffic management is continuing to operate out of Connolly Station and there is no impact on railway safety as a result of delays in the introduction of the new system.

There may not be difficulty with railway safety at the moment, but to say that progress has been slower than anticipated when €31.5 million has been spent without the first phase having been completed is surely the understatement of the year. I understand that there are between seven and nine phases to it and we have not even reached phase 1 despite that kind of expenditure. I do not need to go into the history of bike sheds, children's hospitals and so on but is there a danger that something similar will happen, given the snail's pace of this progress? It was presented as a flagship project. It was going to be the brain of the railway network and the NTA said it was a critical component of the national train control centre, but we cannot hide from this. The costs are massive, and people are keeping an eye on this at the moment with the cost-of-living crisis. I do not think that the progress, answers or reviews are good enough. The Department, the Minister and the wider Government need to take action.

The Government has taken action. The Minister has been proactive and the Department has engaged. The payments under the contract are directly linked to the costs incurred by the contractor and are based on standard international engineering projects. The Deputy presents it as black and white. To be fair, it is not, and I respectfully challenge him. This is a complex matter and it takes time. It is going slower than we would like and we recognise that, but we must get it right and we must be prudent in the management of the project to be delivered. I take the point that it will make a great headline on the news tomorrow that we are running behind time and it is costing X amount, but the costs are incurred by the contractor. We are determined on the Government side, on behalf of all of us, to ensure that the project is delivered. It is taking longer to deliver, but it is still a flagship and it will still be this model that will ultimately deliver for all of us. We have seen, if the Deputy looks at the depth of the questions on rail, that there is a growing use of rail. I assure the Deputy that there are no commercial agreements that will cost further, as of now, for the State. We will work with everyone to ensure that we deliver the matter on budget.

The Minister of State is correct to say that there is a growing use of rail, and we support that, but its development and broadening out are at serious risk with projects like this. The minutes of Irish Rail board meetings are publicly available. The chair of Iarnród Éireann and the project director have expressed serious reservations about the direction and delivery of the project as well as concerns about the contractor's ability to deliver all phases of the project. The failures of this project also raise massive concerns about the contractor's ability to deliver the new €269 million-plus contactless transport ticketing service, the contract for which it also has. We are in a situation where there are electric buses parked up. They are not being used and there are serious concerns about the ability to deliver next generation ticketing. We are lagging far behind the progress that we see in other countries.

We share the Deputy's concern. The Minister has met Indra twice and it now has an office in Dublin. The Deputy is not correct about the buses he refers to. They will be used. Two per week are being unveiled as we speak. All I can say to the Deputy, and I think he will agree, is that there is an extensive safety process that must be gone through. With safety approval stages, you cannot just tick a box and hope it goes away and that you get away with it. That is why the software package must be proper and robust and must stand up to testing and have a quality mark. The Minister has been actively engaged with Indra. The Deputy is right in one regard, in that Indra has to step up to the plate as well. It is the operator. It is the genius, if you like. We can only do so much. I concur with the Deputy on that. That is why the Minister and the Department have been proactive and the Department has been engaging with Indra. At the end of the day, notwithstanding that it is behind time, which we are unhappy about, I think we will have a project that is fit for purpose, will be a flagship and will serve us well in time.