If Enda Kenny had done a quick search on Google for “Shane Ross” and “transport”, he would have found plenty of material. Ireland’s new transport minister has regularly used his weekly column in the Sunday Independent to berate those involved in running public transport in Ireland.
In November 2014, Ross raged against the “sick culture” that he claimed CIE shared with Irish Water.
“The customer is the victim,” he said. “CIE has got away with murdering its victims in recent years — thanks to the National Transport Authority [NTA].”
Ross complained that he spent 38 minutes in vain on the phone to the NTA and blew two gaskets as he tried to get an explanation for why the authority approved an increase in bus and train fares.
Presumably now that Ross is the line minister, he won’t be made wait to wait on hold by the “quango that . . . hung Ireland’s commuting public out to dry”.
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No doubt the public will also be able to sleep easier in the knowledge that Ross will prevent any more “outrageous increases in bus, train and Luas fares”. He accused the NTA of having a “shameful record of handing over consumers to be assaulted and mugged by CIE, Iarnrod Eireann, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus”.
When the NTA told Ross that increased fares were partly because new pay deals were in prospect, he fumed about “bearded trade union chiefs” who he claimed must be “delighted to hear that the semi-state’s regulator had already conceded in advance to their demands for pay hikes”.
The new transport minister wrote that the NTA was “reluctant to tackle costs, inefficiencies, waste or even directors’ fees. They play the semi-state game: the utterly misnamed ‘commercial’ state bodies and state agencies provide a useful buffer for the government”.
Ross wrote that successive transport ministers could protest that price hikes were a matter “between the quango and the regulator”.
He pointed out that the “quangos and regulators were joined at the hip to the government and contaminated by a common non-commercial culture”. He added that all the CIE boards were “stuffed with political insiders”.
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“Irish Water, the NTA, CIE and An Post have common, nasty characteristics,” said Ross. “They are enemies of the consumer. They regard ordinary citizens as fair game. They are allergic to commercial efficiencies. They provide a fig leaf for the government, giving politicians arm’s-length detachment from the cult of crucifying the customer.”
In a column in 2014, Ross called CIE “a basket case” that requires a €265m subvention from the state.
In 2013 Ross criticised CIE bosses of being on the “pig’s back” because of their salaries of more than €200,000, plus cars and pensions. He accused Irish Rail of making a “staggering choice” in awarding Balfour Beatty its €30m track maintenance contract, because that company had a “a fatally chequered safety record”.
Ross called for Vivienne Jupp, CIE’s chairwoman, to immediately collapse the tender because its rules excluded all other bidders.
“Otherwise they should resign for presiding over a complete shambles,” said Ross.
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This column prompted a pointed response from Irish Rail, in a letter written by Barry Kenny, its corporate communications manager.
“While such hypocrisy is hardly surprising from a former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide cheerleader, who has rebranded himself as a lifelong critic of casino banking, it remains breathtaking to see it in action,” wrote Kenny.
He accused Ross of ignoring substantive matters in favour or misrepresentation.
“But Shane Ross has proven to be utterly disinterested in facts,” wrote the Irish Rail manager. “He prefers instead to shoehorn any situation and any information to fit the fake indignation he had already decided upon, treating his readers with contempt, and he blithely misleads them time and time again.”
Irish Rail said yesterday it “looked forward” to working with Ross. Dermot O’Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Railworkers’ Union (NBRU), said Ross’s appointment was a “very interesting one”.
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“He now has an opportunity to dictate the future of our transport system so it suits more passengers and the workers,” said O’Leary. The union official confirmed that workers across the three CIE companies were all seeking pay increases “after eight years of austerity”.