Major proposals on the future of public transport in Dublin, including an underground line between Spencer Dock and Heuston Station, are to be presented to Government ministers in two weeks, The Irish Times has confirmed.
The April 11th meeting of the Cabinet's subcommittee on infrastructural development will also consider proposals by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, to break up CIE into separate companies, each with its own board.
The subcommittee, which also includes the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for the Environment and the Attorney General, is expected to confirm the appointment of Mr John Lynch of FAS as executive chairman of CIE.
Mr Lynch will be given a mandate to oversee the reorganisation of CIE, along the lines favoured by Ms O'Rourke, following the recent resignation of Mr Brian Joyce as the group's chairman because of his irreconcilable differences with the Minister.
Ms O'Rourke expressed surprise yesterday at media reports that CIE would be excluded from bidding for a long-flagged public-private partner ship (PPP) to operate Dublin's Luas light rail system when the first two lines are completed in 2003.
It will be a matter for the Light Rail Advisory/Action Group to assess tenders for the franchise to run Luas. When this group, chaired by Mr Padraic White, was set up in late 1998, it was widely seen as a move to take the project out of CIE's orbit.
However, there is still uncertainty about the controversial plan to run the Sandyford Luas line underground in the city centre. Current thinking favours leaving open the option of turning the Sandyford line into a metro, running underground from Ranelagh.
The Tallaght-Middle Abbey Street line is "ready to roll", according to a Luas spokesman, and the delivery of the first trams for this route is expected to begin by the middle of next year from La Rochelle, in France, where they are being built by GECAlsthom.
Meanwhile, the Dublin Transportation Office is now finalising a major review of the current transport strategy for the Greater Dublin area, and its findings will be presented to Ministers at their meeting on April 11th by the DTO's director, Mr John Henry.
It is understood the DTO plan calls for a major investment, amounting to at least £3 billion, in public transport to provide a "mesh" of integrated services - bus, DART, light rail and metro - which would give people an alternative to the private car.
Also close to completion is a strategic review of suburban rail in the Dublin area by consultant engineers Ove Arup and Partners, which endorses the Heuston-Spencer Dock underground link, and a separate review of bus services by Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick.
Ms O'Rourke told the Seanad on March 22nd that if the findings of these studies required additional resources - above the £1.58 billion allocated for public transport in Dublin under the National Development Plan - "the Government will not be found wanting".
The Minister is also intent on pursuing plans to introduce competition in the Dublin bus sector. However, there is no indication that she has accepted the need to establish a Greater Dublin passenger transport authority to set standards and oversee service delivery.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said the proposal for a PPP to run Luas was made last April in a report by Anderson Consulting, which identified the light rail system as a suitable candidate and this was accepted at the time by the Government.
