The Donegal By-Election
I doubt there’s much being spent on it by the looks of things. The three main party’s candidates should get their own spin-off show.
Will the Dail be sitting long enough for Pearse Doherty’s maiden speech? Surely they’re on Christmas holidays next week and aren’t back till February?
shannon fuckin airport- an airport in a wasteland that people were forced to fly to FFS-
€41 million so unions can talk to each other and go on ‘fact-finding’ missions to New York. Again SIPTU claim to know nothing about this…
HSE finds serious irregularities in HSNPF
Updated: 22:28, Friday, 10 December 2010
A HSE internal audit report has uncovered serious irregularities in a body called the Health Services National Partnership Forum - including extensive expenditure on foreign travel.
The findings echo a similar controversy involving the €60m SKILL training fund earlier this year - where money was channelled to a SIPTU named account, which SIPTU said it knew nothing about.
The HSNPF’s total income between 1999 and 2009 was over €41m.
However, the audit reveals serious deficiencies in how that money was managed - including an incident where cheques were signed by an official rather than the authorised signatory.
It identifies over €1m paid out to trade unions between 2003 and 2008.
In total SIPTU received €924,963 from one fund - the Action Plan for People Management.
This money was paid into the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy account - which SIPTU said was not one of its accounts.
It notes that three payments totalling €700,000 were paid to SIPTU - some of which was passed on to other unions.
Following contact from the Internal Audit team, four unions confirmed that they had received but not yet spent the funds, and to date over €250,000 has been refunded to the HSE.
The audit says: ‘It is not clear why HSNPF breached its own procedure by agreeing to pay over funds in bulk to SIPTU for SIPTU to disburse the funds to other unions and itself, without any evidence that claims had been submitted and properly validated without any account of how the funding of €925,000 was expended.’
A total of 21 foreign trips were undertaken by members of the forum at a cost of €146,480.
€154,474 was spent on links with American health projects in New York.
The audit noted that significant amounts of expenditure on the HSNPF director’s credit card were incurred for travel, hotels and restaurants.
It criticised the fact that the credit card statements were self certified.
Proper procurement processes were not always adhered to - and documentation and records were inadequate.
Grants totalling €13,380m were paid to various health agencies- but the audit states that some activity did not seem to be wholly partnership relevant - adding that the organisations should have taken them on as part of day to day activities.
Meanwhile, senior management of the HSE has been criticised for its governance of the €60m SKILL training programme for health staff.
Almost €2.5m was channelled to a SIPTU named-account and spent on controversial foreign travel.
The finding comes in an investigation commissioned by the HSE from former IBEC Director General Turlough O’Sullivan.
At least €2.3m from the SKILL funds was spent on 31 trips to America between 2002 and 2008.
The delegations included officials some of whom are retired from the Departments of Finance and Health, the HSE, unions, partnership bodies and spouses.
SIPTU has consistently said it had no knowledge of the account into which the money was paid. SIPTU has since taken control of the account.
A spokesperson for SIPTU said the sub-committee of SIPTU trustees that are enquiring into this matter are aware of these funds going into the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy Account.
SIPTU has already stated that the money disbursed by the HSE was not sought received or audited by SIPTU.
SIPTU expects to complete its enquiry in the coming weeks.
The HSE internal audit report of the SKILL Programme has found that the programme did not meet its annual target of 4,000 participants.
The audit found that up to the end of December 2009, 8,977 support workers have participated in the training programme, at an average cost of €5,241.
The report estimates that the total cost of the SKILL programme for the existing workers will be €167m.
The report also states that based on the annual participant registration it will take until 2023 to train all existing 32,000 support workers.
Given the ‘exceptional projected costs’, the audit says it is essential that HSE management is assured of the effectiveness of the training programme to date and should carry out a review of the future costs to ensure it delivers value for money.
The audit also notes that the Labour Court recommendation did not specifically provide for payments to reimburse employers to replace staff who went on SKILL training courses - a practice know as ‘backfilling costs’.
Iarnród Éireann has submitted a plan to create a Dart rail link between Dublin Airport and Dublin city centre.
The business case for the new line, costing an estimated €200m has been presented to Transport Minister Leo Varadkar.
The construction of a 7km rail line from Clongriffin to the airport would allow passengers a direct link to the city with a projected journey time of just 25 minutes.
The new line could be operational within four years.
The lower cost and rapid delivery of a high-speed rail link from the airport to the city means the project is more likely to be approved by the cash-strapped government.
A review of the capital spending programme is under way and will be completed in September, after which a decision will be made on which of the four projects – Metro North, DART underground, DART airport and link-up of the two Luas lines – will go ahead.
Last May the Irish Independent revealed that the Government had ordered Iarnrod Eireann to update a 1991 plan to build a spur from Clongriffin Station to the airport.
The move came amid concerns that the State could not afford a €2.5bn Metro North project from the city centre to Swords via the airport, and that an extension of the DART network could be the cheaper option.
I’ve been saying for ages they should do this. We don’t need an underground train ffs. The fact they’ve probably spent the cost of doing this on the feasability studies etc. on the metro is what qualifies it for this thread.
This makes much more sense.
It always was a surprise to me when, of the 3 metro north proposed lines, the one that went through Drumcondra was eventually chosen by the FF govt.
Seems the most obvious solution alright.
You’d miss Ben around here for his definitive take on it. The one thing they really need to do is upgrade the signalling. There’s a very small number of trains that can pass through to Connnolly on current signalling - it’s 8 an hour or something in both directions. They really need to improve on that so they can put capacity on any new routes. If they improved the signalling and put that spur out to the airport it would improve the DART hugely.
good long ongoing discussion on the metro north on boards.ie. ben is probably one of them. the metro north was far more than a rail link to the airport. it links a load of populated public transport shy areas. Pity it wasnt done in the good times. No chance now for sure.
The thought of CIE managing this project has cost overrun written all over it. The anoracks on boards have a load of reasons why this Dart airport spur isnt going to work either. Some to do with the capacity on the current line being maxed out already without adding the airport traffic onto it I think. Been a good while since I’ve read that thread. They were scathing of some Irish Times journalist who has been bashing the proposed Metro from the start. Hints of other agendas etc
Could they not just run feeder buses from the airport to Clongriffin on a QBC and save themselves a lot of money?
Yeah as I said above, they need to upgrade the signalling to take advantage of this capacity but that should be done anyway.
The Metro would be top-end public transport but it’s not required. Adding another few kms of track to Swords (in time) would hugely increase the catchment area for the DART. It doesn’t really make sense for a city of Dublin’s size to have three different types of incompatible rail services - DART, LUAS and Metro. While the metro would be really quick and really efficient at transporting people into the city we could achieve 90% of that with cheaper DART extensions, which would have the added benefit of updating the existing DART and making it all much easier to manage.
Frank McDonald is who those Boards lads are talking about I’d guess. He’s been very much anti-Metro from the start alright. There are as many vested interests in those “independent” railusers groups though.
It’s not realistic for people to change from a DART to a bus with baggage etc. They just won’t use it. There was already an Airlink service from Howth Junction to the airport that nobody used and there’s a link currently to Malahide and Sutton DART stations but they’re not practical for tourists or people travelling from the city centre.
you are so cynical
Why not just get the bus into town then?
That’s what I’d do myself. I don’t see what the fascination is with having to have a rail link to city centre. I’m sure plenty of other European cities / airports manage without it. With the Port Tunnel it’s nearly quicker to get a bus to the city centre than any rail link would get you into town. Traffic jams aren’t half the issue they used to be. Plus getting a dart in restricts the part of the city centre that you can travel to unless you want to get off and travel by Luas / Taxi / Bus.
san fran, boston - similar sized cities - trains to airport into city centre quickly.
melbourne has buses alright but buses cant handle fuck all people or bags and there will be traffic congestion at peak times. demand for public transport to and from dublin airport might not be great at the moment and its why any initiative should try and integrate with serving the needs of the good citizens of north county dublin rather than merely an airport link.
Limerick County Council are in the throes of their annual dash to use up their budget before year end.
These include spending a month tidying up the Ferrybridge and for the past 3 weeks causing traffic hold ups on the N69 so they can lay two footpaths through Kildimo that go nowhere.
woud they not be better off hiring a couple of a10s and doing a proper job in southill, moyross and askeaton?
Would this explain roadworks in practically every town in Ireland I’ve passed through in the last number of weeks? Would start to make sense.
I’d say so. If they don’t use up their budget it will be cut for next year.
Had my own road at home resurfaced recently and there was no need for it at all.