By Niamh Connolly

A €4.8 billion airport metro planned for Dublin could face high compensation claims for land unless arbitration awards are reduced, according to the agency responsible for the project.

The government has paid €36 million so far in compensation for private property bought along the two Luas lines, from Tallaght to Connolly and Sandyford to Harcourt Street, as reported by this newspaper last week.

Arbitration awards have helped to increase the cost of the Luas from €695 million to €775 million.The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), which is responsible for light rail projects, fears this will set a benchmark for the airport metro. There will be an extensive planning and public consultation process for the highspeed metro, which is likely to run underground from St Stephen's Green through the city centre to Broadstone, taking in Glasnevin, Dublin City University and Ballymun,with an extension to Swords.

The route runs under hundreds of multistorey buildings in the city centre, and planning and consultation are expected to take at least one year.

According to Frank Allen, chief executive of the RPA, international developers bidding on infrastructural projects here were shocked at the extent of public consultation long after planning permission had been granted.
Minister for Transport Seamus Brennan travelled to Madrid two weeks ago to assess the city's metro project. He found that because the tunnelling was over ten metres underground, the state did not have to consult property owners or pay compensation, as the land was deemed public property.

Allen has expressed concern about comparisons between rail projects made only on the basis of cost per kilometre. He said the RPA stood over its figure of €4.8 billion as the total cost of the metro as a public-private partnership. This included construction, design and property compensation, and took in inflation.

Based on construction costs alone, and excluding planning and land acquisition costs, the cost of the metro in Madrid (in 2002 figures) was €50 million per kilometre, compared to the Dublin cost of €100 million to €150 million, according to the RPA.

Madrid added suburban extensions to an existing metro, so expensive tunnelling was not needed under the city centre. Allen said the initial phase of an underground system was always more expensive, and city centre tunnelling was more complex than tunnelling in suburban areas.

But transport experts question why the RPA did not use Spanish infrastructural consultants, who have a history of delivering cheaper underground projects.

The RPA considers that the costs of the Dublin metro are on a par with other metro systems which typically cost from €80 million to €150 million per kilometre, including Copenhagen, London's Docklands Light Railway, Baltimore Maryland and San Francisco.

The Jubilee Line in London had the highest cost, at €425 million per kilometre (at 2002 prices), due to major tunnelling problems.

In France, the state electricity board takes full responsibility for utilities diversion when roads are dug up to lay
tracks, which accounts for a substantial part of the overall expense. Here, the bill for utilities conversion is paid by the state.

Brennan said the rail link from Dublin Airport to St Stephen's Green remained one of his top priorities.

However, a month ago, Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy said in a letter to the Taoiseach that Brennan was disregarding the state of the country's financ es. McCreevy pointed out that he had already granted an extra €209 million to the roads budget for 2003 "despite the huge demands on me in other areas including health, education and housing".

McCreevy acknowledged the importance of infrastructural development, but said investment "cannot be divorced from overall budgetary and public expenditure policy and must be grounded in reality".