In six years the cost of Luas has risen from €288 million to €675million, but its value as a transport system has fallen, arguesFrank McDonald, Environment Editor.
LUAS was trumpeted seven years ago as "the biggest and boldest public transport project since the foundation of the State". The trumpeter was Mr Michael Lowry TD, then minister for transport, whose currency has been somewhat devalued since then by the McCracken and Moriarty tribunals.
So, too, has the Luas project. Even as its cost estimate has soared from £227 million (€288 million) in 1997 to €675 million (£532 million) today, its value as a transport system has fallen. Because all it will deliver is two free-standing light-rail lines with no physical connection between them.
The original estimate was for a light-rail line from Tallaght to Ballally, south of Dundrum, running on-street through the city centre. But that plan was set aside by the Government in May 1998, largely because of irrational fears among ministers that it would disrupt other traffic.
To dress up this climbdown in the face of an independent report endorsing the original concept, Ms Mary O'Rourke, then minister for public enterprise, unveiled "Le Grand Plan" for a light rail network, with lines or extensions to Ballymun/Dublin Airport, Connolly Station, Docklands, Finglas and Cabinteely.
Though her plan also included provision for an underground link between St Stephen's Green and Broadstone, Ms O'Rourke boldly claimed that it could all be delivered for "£400 million-plus" (the equivalent of €508 million). When she was asked in the Dáil to clarify this estimate, she said "plus means extra".
Extra is right. Even the two lines currently under construction will cost a lot more than the elastic estimate given in May 1998. Like most major infrastructure projects in Ireland, Luas is way over budget and will be delivered behind schedule - at least a year late, or much more if you count political dithering time.
Though GEC-Alsthom trams for Dublin have been rolling off the production line at La Rochelle in France since mid-2001, and most of them have now been delivered, it will not be until late-2004 that they will be put into service. All we've seen is a show tram in Merrion Square and some test runs.
Meanwhile, the capital cost has climbed from €288 million in 1997 to €444 million in 2000, €635 million in 2001 and €675 million today. Not even the latest figure is final, as the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has set aside a further €100 million "contingency fund". Thus, the final bill could reach €775 million.
Either way, it is clear that Luas is turning out to be the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the State, outstripping the €625 million Dublin Port Tunnel. And that is for just two lines - one linking Sandyford with St Stephen's Green and the other linking Tallaght with Connolly Station.
When the contract to build the two lines was awarded in March 2001 to Ansaldo-MVM, an Italian-Australian joint venture, the sum quoted was £196 million (€249 million), in addition to an estimated £50 million (€63.5 million) for the trams. But these figures come to less than half of the current completion cost.
The massive cost over-run on Luas is attributed to changes in alignments, construction cost inflation, ordering more and longer trams and the high cost of property acquisition. The cost of diverting utilities from the trackbed has also been much more expensive than anticipated.
At least €30 million of the cost over-run is accounted for by the acquisition and demolition of the ramp at Connolly Station, which the RPA's chief executive, Mr Frank Allen, conceded last week was unnecessary in the context of extending the Tallaght Luas line through the Docklands area to the Point Depot.
However, the RPA's board decided in February of last year to go ahead with this plan, even though it was opposed by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, which saw no logic in implementing it, and by Connex, the company that will run Luas, which warned that it would raise operational problems.
Iarnród Éireann also had reservations about the demolition of the ramp because of its implications for servicing Connolly Station, which could be particularly serious in the event of a fire. Bus Éireann, which used the ramp as an overflow bus park for Busáras, also objected to the scheme.
The DDDA, which owns the land on which the ramp stands and will have to be paid full commercial value for it, saw no sense in having a terminal stop at this location when it was clear that Luas would be extended to Docklands and Connolly Station could be served en route with a different alignment.
The plan to remove the ramp also ignored a proposal by the DDDA in October 1999 for a multi-modal transport interchange adjoining the DART station at the northern end of Connolly, on the site of the station car-park on Sheriff Street, to provide a direct connection between DART, Luas and bus services.
In its public consultation brochure for the Docklands extension, the RPA shows three different route options - A, B and C. Either B or C, which would route Luas through the International Financial Services Centre via Harbourmaster Place, would serve Connolly Station without the need for the terminal stop.
Under Option A, a "scissors crossover" would be provided at the station to allow trams from Tallaght to gain access to and exit from it in both directions. This would involve the driver transferring from one end of the tram to the other so that it could continue on to Docklands, running along Mayor Street.
Last July, the RPA's chairman, Mr Padraig White, defended its decision to proceed with plans to demolish the ramp at Connolly Station, saying the discussion of options for Luas had "gone on long enough". His agency had "a job to do" and that meant proceeding with the scheme already approved.