Shane Ross scorned as the ‘absentee captain of a ghost ship’
SHANE ROSS has been condemned for allowing the Transport sector to ‘slide into a state of chaos’ after it emerged that the boards of Irish Rail along with CIE, the National Transport Authority and Bus Éireann are each without a chairman.
To top things off the current Dublin Bus chairman’s term of office ends within weeks – which will leave all four semi-state transport companies without a chair.
In addition the Road Safety Authority is engaged in an ongoing battle with the Transport Minister over the need to recruit additional board members.
This all comes as Irish Rail is facing into a crisis of sustainability similar to that at Bus Éireann earlier this year. It is planning to cut four rail routes at a time when the economy is recovering.
Figures from the Department of Transport Tourism and Trade also reveal board vacancies in a number of semi-state companies under Mr Ross’s control.
These include four vacancies at Fáilte Ireland which is struggling to prepare for Brexit and the fall in the value of sterling – which makes it much more expensive for British people to holiday here.
Dublin Bus has three vacancies on its eight-member board. Two of the current five board members are employee representatives.
At Irish Rail two of eight board positions are vacant. Of the six current board members two are employees.
The scenario has prompted outrage among opposition politicians. Labour’s Alan Kelly said: ‘The governance of Ireland’s public transport system is sliding into a state of chaos under its absentee minister.
‘Appropriate corporate governance is a widow when it comes to public transport under Minister Ross,’ he said before adding that the ‘ramshackle level of ministerial governance is all the more appalling given the crises the various key transport infrastructural providers are facing.’
Mr Ross’s apparent ‘hands off’ approach to corporate governance is even generating suspicion that he is running the companies down to prepare them for privatisation.
Although a Cabinet colleague said: ‘Nothing I have seen suggests that Ross has that level of strategic competence.’
The failure to fill board vacancies is, according to Mr Kelly, ‘just part of the generalised incompetence and malaise of indifference to public transport that has characterised his [Mr Ross’s] reign’.
‘I have been told the Department represents a ghost ship where the captain is a semi-permanent absentee,’ said Mr Kelly.
‘It is hard to avoid the impression that Mr Ross’s attitude to commuters is the modern Marie Antoinette one of let them walk,’ he added.
Fianna Fáil Transport spokesman Robert Troy said: ‘Irish public transport is going through a period of profound change. These companies need a full complement of board members to support the management in these turbulent times.’
He said his party had repeatedly raised Mr Ross’s intransigence on board appointments in the past year but ‘fell on deaf ears’.
‘Minister Ross has no such qualms about interfering in appointments that have no direct relationship to his role as Minister for Transport,’ he said.
Mr Troy said the situation is severely hampering the ability of public transport bodies to stabilise themselves, and to position themselves for growth into the future. He said if Mr Ross fails to act, ‘the Taoiseach must surely intervene’.
Neither Mr Ross or his department – which has a fully staffed press office – responded to queries on this issue this week.
‘No chair at semi-state transport companies’ ‘Ramshackle level of ministerial governance’