The Department of Public Enterprise yesterday denied a Fine Gael claim that an independent report on rail safety had been "doctored".
Fine Gael claimed that safety on the Athlone to Claremorris, Mallow to Tralee and Limerick Junction to Waterford routes had been "compromised" by "dilution" of the risk assessment.
A spokesman for the Department said there was no question of the report being "doctored" and no effort to hide anything. The matter had been raised in a Seanad debate at the end of October-November by Mr Fergus O'Dowd of Fine Gael. The Minister had then given Fine Gael access to all documentation, to civil servants and to the consultants.
Fine Gael's spokesman on transport, Mr Ivan Yates, said a very serious discrepancy existed between the five working papers that technically assessed rail safety and the published data. He claimed the original draft showed that these lines posed "intolerable" and "unacceptable" risks to passengers.
He said that after department officials and members of the English consultants IRMS met in Manchester in October, IRMS asked Irish Rail for revised passenger data to reassess the risk ratio on these lines. "The parallel sections of the final report and the executive summary exclude any reference to these lines," Mr Yates said.
The Department spokesman said there was always consultation between civil servants and consultants when a report was being drawn up. The Manchester meeting had been arranged by the civil servants to see what risk model they were using. Whatever model was to be used had to be based on the level of passenger loadings and that was made clear.
He said Fine Gael seemed to be implying that if there was an "intolerable" risk level the lines should be closed down. That was not the case - the line would get priority for immediate funding and the speed of trains would be reduced. He wanted to firmly deny that any attempt had been made to bring pressure on the consultants to change the risk factors in the report.
Mr Yates said the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, "cannot simply sweep under the carpet both illogical fundamental alterations and discrepancies in the documentation. This amounts to grave political interference."
The Department spokesman said the Minister intended writing to the chairman of the Dail Public Enterprise and Transport Committee, Mr Sean Doherty, asking that it investigate the issue raised by Fine Gael. Officials from the Department and the consultants are prepared to give evidence.