Political row at viaduct Committee

The Oireachtas Transport Committee has met to discuss the collapse of the Malahide viaduct.

The meeting began this morning with an argument between the chairman Frank Fahey and member Fergus O'Dowd over why Deputy Fahey missed a recent committee visit to the viaduct.

Deputy O'Dowd said Deputy Fahey should have been there as he could not think of a more important issue and he exhorted him to do his job.

Mr Fahey said he was at a Council of Europe meeting that day, but that he arranged for the visit to go ahead anyway.

He said he rarely misses a committee meeting, unlike Deputy O'Dowd who on some occasions only comes in for ten or 15 minutes.

Frank Fahey said he would not allow political backstabbing to take place in the committee.

When attention turned to the collapse of the viaduct, Deputy Fahey said the action of the train driver Keith Farrelly should be acknowledged.

He said the train, with 1,100 passengers on board, was four minutes away from disaster and that his action prevented a catastrophe.

Labour Deputy Tommy Broughan demanded to know why trains were not stopped once the report of scouring of the viaduct was received from a Sea Scout leader.

He said the viaduct collapse could have left hundreds of people dead.

Iarnród Éireann Richard Fearns told the committee that an engineer rang the Sea Scout leader back to get detailed information and that an engineer inspected the pier at low tide.

He said the report from the Sea Scout leader was of markings on the pier and that a trace from automatic train track recorder done the previous day showed no movement of the line.

Iarnrod Éireann's John Lynch said all viaducts are being checked underwater by divers this week, while Mr Fearns said all 84 bridges over water have already been checked for evidence similar to Malahide.

He said detailed underwater inspections are being conducted on all over-water bridges.

However, it emerged at the meeting that the structural engineer sent by Iarnród Éireann to examine the viaduct did not use a boat.