Dublin Port tunnel

[A face]

How many million a mile will it cost ??

[pete]

click

I make to €300m per mile.

[finlma]

Paddy Power's Tunnel Odds:

When will Dublin’s Port Tunnel be officially opened?
Before 1st July 2006 14 - 1
1st July - 30th September 2006 inc' 11 - 2
1st October - 31st December 2006 inc' 5 - 4
After 1st January 2007 5 - 6

Port Tunnel Specials
Port Tunnel to be closed during 2007 due to nesting swans or ducks 100 - 1
Truck drivers to be issued with life jackets when entering Port tunnel 500 - 1
Port Tunnel branded swimwear to be launched before 31 Dec 2006 750 - 1
Port Tunnel to be re-designed as Europe’s biggest Waterslide 1000 - 1

[A face]

NRA will be bringing in a Dutch firm to finish off the final phase of the tunnel.

See here

[Peadar]

NRA

If the NRA have anything to do with it, Charlton Heston and his buddies will be waiting, rifle in hand, on the northside of the tunnel, ready to have a pot shot at anyone trying to sneak over from the southside.

[pete]

If the NRA have anything to do with it, Charlton Heston and his buddies will be waiting, rifle in hand, on the northside of the tunnel, ready to have a pot shot at anyone trying to sneak over from the southside.

Maybe its bullet holes that are causing the leaks.

[Partizan]

Maybe its bullet holes that are causing the leaks.

Nope, its the incompetence of a builder (usually a FF hack) who made an arse dickey of the whole thing.

[A face]

Maybe its bullet holes that are causing the leaks.

Hawt'diggety'dog !!

[A face]

There is an article on Wikipedia.org about this, worth a read. The costs are surging and there are no answers coming from the Dail.

Its actually really bad now, on the six one news last night they said it is one of the most expensive projects ever undertaken in Europe at this stage, that is cringeworthy stuff at this stage. Martin Cullen just seems to be a by-stander in all of this. Should he lose his job and government persion over this ?? It has to have wrecked his political career by now, and if it hasn't, then we have absolutely now hope so, the guy can just do as he pleases.

[Macy]

Its actually really bad now, on the six one news last night they said it is one of the most expensive projects ever undertaken in Europe at this stage, that is cringeworthy stuff at this stage. Martin Cullen just seems to be a by-stander in all of this. Should he lose his job and government persion over this ?? It has to have wrecked his political career by now, and if it hasn't, then we have absolutely now hope so, the guy can just do as he pleases.

I've no doubt that all the blame will be passed on to Dublin City Council, and they do have some responsibility. However, the lack of Governmental responsibility in this country is scary to me. Dick Roche was on the Last Word again last night blaming County Councils for lack of recycling facilities etc. Anything wrong with the Health Service is the HSE and in no way the Governments fault, etc etc. How many overspends and wasted millions is this Cullen has been over at this stage?

Edit - Moved the off topic local Government reform part to a new thread - Macy

[rebs23]

How many million a mile will it cost ??

Probably never costed properly in the first place, if it was then it would never have got cabinet approval. The Port Tunnel seems to becoming a real white elephant especially when you consider it would have been far more sensible to relocate Dublin Port activities to Dundalk, Arklow, Drogheda etc, etc and free up all that land in Dublin City Centre for housing. The project itself and the need for it just does not make sense!!!
Having said all that when it does open up eventually then everyone will be wondering how they ever did without it!

[pineapple stu]

Paddy Power's Tunnel Odds:
Truck drivers to be issued with life jackets when entering Port tunnel 500 - 1
Port Tunnel branded swimwear to be launched before 31 Dec 2006 750 - 1

A grand on either of these bets would surely cover the costs of making the jackets or swimwear!

[Bald Student]

My own opinion is that we tend to get a little bit hysterical over some infrastructural projects. 750 million is a reasonable price to pay for a tunnel like this. The actual building of the tunnel is about 450 million with 300 million in sundry expences. It's in the sundry expences that there are savings to be made but they're politically unpopular (paying people less for buying the land under their houses, having a shorter planning process and things like that). Getting worried about a leak in the tunnel which has probably already been fixed is as silly as getting worked up over the builders having to re-glue some of the luas track.

The bottom line is that infrastructure is expensive and if we want it we'll have to pay for it. Giving power to the councils or voting in the opposition is not going to change the cost of hiring a tunnelling machiene or the cost of buying concrete. If I may quote a famous philosopher, this is a classic example of money being exchanged for goods and services.

[pete]

My own opinion is that we tend to get a little bit hysterical over some infrastructural projects. 750 million is a reasonable price to pay for a tunnel like this.

Strange opinion. I'd have no issue with €750m if thats what the project was costed at & agreed at. Seems the state is totally incompetent at Project Management. If the builders come back to the state & ask for €200m top up for extra they entitled to request that but then means project not specified correctly to start with. What extra costs could you have with a tunnel? Surely the state asks for tenders on basis on Tunnel starting at A & ending at B. Builders tender with price based on spec & state signs contracts...

If you gave house plans to builder who said would do for €200k & then he came back when complete with bill for €300k you wouldn't pay him.

[Bald Student]

I'm not an expert in this pete, I'm an electronics engineer so my brief civil engineering training was a few years ago but my understanding of the situation is that contracts are usually based not just on the tunnel starting at A and finishing at B but also on the basis of what's in between. That's the key difference between the current contracts and the fixed price contracts that the government is going to use in the future (which, incidentally, I think are a bad idea). Under the current system, if something unexpected happened (e.g. difficult tunnelling conditions or a rare snail being discovered) and there are extra costs the government pays the extra. I don't know wheather this happened in this case or not. My point is that I don't see this as controversial and I don't see it as poor project management either. I would vote for an opposition party if one of them could give me a solid example of how they could reduce the cost of this project but none have. To use another example, I often hear politicians giving out about how much the luas cost but none have said how they would build it for cheaper.