Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow How the Deputy characterised Government spending does not tally with the reality of the situation. More than €10 billion has been allocated for public transport projects across the country. The overwhelming majority of those projects are on budget, on time and making a real and meaningful difference. The list of projects delivered on time and on budget by this Government includes the national broadband plan, which the Deputy's party actively opposed. Sinn Féin did not want broadband rolled out to rural communities in Donegal and right across the country. We rolled it out. Sinn Féin opposed it vigorously. That is true. My party, Fine Gael, was the only party which supported it. We delivered it on time and on budget. Other projects include Rosslare Europort, Luas cross city, Woodbrook train station, the new platform at Kent Station in Cork and the Bray transport interchange. There are countless examples of public money being well used and resulting in projects being delivered on time and on budget. We are investing more in public transport, as we should and as we can, as a result of the strength of our economy. The Deputy is right to highlight a specific issue regarding the traffic management system, however. The national train control centre building was delivered on time and within budget. Let us acknowledge that. It is currently in use by Iarnród Éireann and by approximately 100 members of An Garda Síochána. The new traffic management system to oversee signalling and other railway systems has been delayed beyond its completion date. That is factually correct. The Minister for Transport met the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the contractor, Indra. The Deputy asked what the Minister is doing. He is engaging intensively. He met the representatives of both entities last year and had further meetings in January of this year regarding the delivery of the traffic management system as soon as possible. A baseline programme has been agreed between Irish Rail, the NTA and the contractor, Indra. Quite rightly, an Oireachtas committee scrutinised this issue yesterday. I do not accept the Deputy's characterisation that the Government is accepting that the €50 million gone and that the taxpayer must foot the bill, and neither does the Government. The reality is that the Irish Rail accounts have been submitted for consideration to the Department of Transport. They will also be scrutinised and considered by NewERA, which looks at all these issues. As the Deputy knows and as he would expect us to do, there will be a contract in place. We need to work through the issues. We should not jump to any conclusions about when and where the bill will fall due. I expect the Minister, Irish Rail and NewERA to perform their roles in terms of ensuring that the terms of the contract are delivered upon. I want to assure people that there are contingency plans in place from a safety point of view. From a railway safety perspective, there is not an issue here. The project is taking longer than it should. No decision has yet been made regarding the approval of the annual accounts. They will be reviewed by the Department and NewERA and then published. There is a way to go in terms of working through this issue. The Government's record of delivering projects on time and on budget in communities right across this country is there for all to see. When things go wrong and projects are delayed, it is quite right that Oireachtas committees, on a cross-party basis, scrutinise the issues involved, as happened yesterday. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-02