Safety experts from the Rail Inspection Office (RIO) got their first response from CIE to questions about the troubled mini-CTC signalling project yesterday - four years after they first sought information.
The office, which works within the Department of Public Enterprise, is supposed to approve all new rail works but the inquiry heard it had written eight times seeking information since August 1997 and got a letter back only yesterday morning.
Rail inspector Ms Mary Molloy told the inquiry the author of the letter, an Iarnrod Eireann engineer, apologised for the delay but said he still could not provide the information she wanted.
Ms Molloy also said she was notified that the Knockcroghery, Co Roscommon, level crossing, the only part of the mini-CTC fully operational, was being started up last year - a week before it was switched on so there was no time to assess it in advance.
She described the treatment of her office's requests for information about mini-CTC as "strange". She had dealt with 16 other rail projects last year and received full information on all of them.
Iarnrod Eireann safety manager Mr Ted Corcoran said he did not believe all the RIO's letters were addressed to him, but the subcommittee produced the letters to show otherwise. Mr Corcoran said he would have passed any letters sent to him to the relevant heads of departments.
He said he did not believe anybody decided deliberately to keep information from the RIO, but said the process of supplying information was "very unclear".
Earlier the inquiry heard from Mr David Reid, a consultant, that a survey his firm carried out identified potential safety concerns along track laid with mini-CTC cabling and cabling installed for Esat Telecom.
The ploughing of land and creation of trenches for cable ducts may have disturbed some embankments, he said.
The inquiry also heard that consultants WS Atkins, who produced a report on the handling of the mini-CTC in August 2000, found none of the usual cost control safeguards they would expect in a project of this kind.
One of the consultants, Mr David McKeever, had described the mini-CTC debacle in a private communication to a consultant colleague as "the cockup of the century".