THE 'not-so-smart-card' allowing commuters hop between buses, Luas and trains is set to cost taxpayers almost €50m.
Some €14m has already been spent on the shambolic travel-card project, much of it on outside, overseas consultants.
The waste of taxpayers' money on failed projects such as e-voting and the health service computer systems, PPARS and FISP, have been consistently used by Fine Gael and Labour to hammer the Government.
New figures published yesterday put the final expected cost of the project at €49.6m. The original estimate was for €29.6m.
A report from the Comptroller and Auditor General last year said a failed public procurement process undertaken by the Railway Procurement Agency had cost almost €1m and delayed the project by about one year. The project has since been handed over to an inter-departmental committee headed by the former secretary of the Department of Defence, David O'Callaghan.
Plans to introduce integrated ticketing on Dublin Bus and Dart services were originally put forward by CIE in the mid-1990s, but the project never got the green light. It was promised by a succession of transport ministers, Mary O'Rourke, Seamus Brennan and Martin Cullen.
A spokesperson for Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said yesterday that the delivery of an integrated ticketing system was a priority.
In late June, the tender notice for the ticketing system was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities and this project was now under way.
"The minister is anxious to deliver a user friendly, integrated ticketing system for the public as soon as possible," the spokesperson added.
Treacy Hogan
Irish Independent
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