The inquiry into a £36 million overshoot on a CIE rail signalling system was derided by key witnesses yesterday as an exercise akin to the parade of a naked emperor.
Executives with the French multinational Alstom, which acquired CIE's lead co-contractor Sasib in 1998, claimed that the spiralling costs were inevitable. They said CIE's rail company Iarnrod Eireann had ordered a signalling network similar to a family car, but demanded delivery of a high-end saloon.
Yet the system remained incomplete, despite the escalation, and this was sufficient to prompt the establishment of an inquiry. The sub-committee is in its second week of hearings and it is keen also to explore CIE's links with Esat Telecom, which constructed a telecoms network on the railway at the same time as the signalling plan ran aground. But the inquiry's very existence was questioned yesterday by Alstom, whose executives said their failure to forge a "longterm strategic relationship" with Iarnrod Eireann was a "source of considerable regret".
In the past week, the two companies ended their link when Iarnrod Eireann made a £1.5 million payment in respect of work already done by Alstom on the mini-CTC signalling system. It is understood Alstom sought £11 million, in addition to transfers of £11 million previously made to the company and its Irish co-contractor, Modern Networks Ltd (MNL). That company, which was also contracted to lay cable for the Esat system, is now in provisional liquidation.
Three of its executives, who joined after leaving Iarnrod Eireann when the contract was still in place, have challenged the findings of a Pricewaterhouse
Coopers (PwC) analysis of the signalling overrun that led to the inquiry's establishment. One, Mr Brian Powell, accused the accounting firm of producing work worthy of "rank amateurs".
Alstom's criticism was not quite as stinging, but there was little comfort for PwC yesterday. The managing director of Alstom's signalling operation, Mr Charles Burch, said its report had resulted in "serious misunderstandings".
His colleague Mr Pier Prina Mello, who secured Sasib's contract, said: "Nobody with any connection to the mini-CTC project agreed with the findings. I ask rhetorically whether the inquiry, stripped of its PwC garment, has any clothes left to wear."
Mr Prina Mello claimed he was at a loss to understand why the inquiry was taking place at all. "The project advertised in 1996 bears little or no resemblance to the project which is now envisaged and required."
Mr Burch said: "Any major capital project must have certain fundamental building blocks if it is to succeed: a clearly defined scope of work; a well-resourced and empowered client interface team; an agreed work programme or schedule; management of adjacent contracts; an appropriate contract with an agreed set of costs which reflect the scope of the programme.
"In our view there were key shortcomings in all of these areas which contributed to the situation in which the mini-CTC project now finds itself."
He also said Iarnrod Eireann was unable to manage the interrelationship of the mini-CTC and Esat contracts.
Questions as to why CIE prioritised work on the Esat network despite a December 1999 deadline for EU funding for the signalling plan surfaced yesterday when a letter that Mr Powell wrote for MNL in October 1999 to Iarnrod Eireann was opened. It said: "Iarnrod Eireann unilaterally decided to require the Esat cable to be ploughed ahead of the mini-CTC cable, and instructed MNL accordingly under the provisions of the Esat contract.
"Iarnrod Eireann gave MNL this instruction against MNL's advice, knowing that the consequence would be that cable for the stations under the mini-CTC contract could no longer be ploughed."