So Iarnrod Eireann / Irish Rail witness a bridge getting washed up over the weekend and luckily there was no fatal accident as a result.
The prolongated tender procurement process for public sector construction contracts currently involves contractors having to go through the riggers of answering health and safety questions, quality control procedures, method statements and other such trivial red tape considerations in order to qualify to get on tender lists. Even after successfully getting on the tender list and when a contract commences more red tape is required.
One such client is Irish Rail.
It's a pity clients such as Irish Rail cannot get their own house in order in the first place and practice what they preach by way of having some Q/A and safety system in place. After this near disaster it is evident that something somewhere in their process and inspection procedures is flawed.
It's a pity clients such as Irish Rail cannot get their own house in order in the first place and practice what they preach by way of having some Q/A and safety system in place. After this near disaster it is evident that something somewhere in their process and inspection procedures is flawed.
It is said that this Malahide Estuary bridge dates back to 1844. This in fact pre-dates the brilliant and beautiful Forth Rail bridge in Scotland. One cannot presume to draw a comparison between our Malahide Estuary bridge and the Forth Bridge however the date and timeline is an interesting point to remark on as the Forth Rail bridge underwent a safety inspection in 1996 and the result was a full refurbishment contract.
Why didn't our people in Irish Rail derive some similar inspection for a bridge so old? There are also extensive ground movement and monitoring devices in the market these days to enable old structures such as this bridge to be flagged and watched more carefully and any ground movement can be predicted. Its incredible that in 2009 that something like this would happen in a country that now regards itself as modernized.
Anyhow it will be a typical Irish reaction where no uproar will ensue and reports and the like that were supposed to be carried out will all get forgotten about and nobody will get the blame or lose there jobs over this. One would imagine one hell of a different reaction from the public had a train crash ensued as a result.
If a contractor designed and constructed a failed bridge they would certainly have to pay the price and the incident certainly wouldn't be forgotten, or would it?
Anyhow it will be a typical Irish reaction where no uproar will ensue and reports and the like that were supposed to be carried out will all get forgotten about and nobody will get the blame or lose there jobs over this. One would imagine one hell of a different reaction from the public had a train crash ensued as a result.
If a contractor designed and constructed a failed bridge they would certainly have to pay the price and the incident certainly wouldn't be forgotten, or would it?
"The elongated tender procurement process currently involves contractors having to go through the riggers of answering ..."
ReplyDeleteSweet Jesus!
Excellent Posts and keep up the good work
ReplyDelete"Anyhow it will be a typical Irish reaction where no uproar will ensue and reports and the like that were supposed to be carried out will all get forgotten about and nobody will get the blame or lose there jobs over this."
ReplyDeleteOver one year since event. - Spot on analysis!
"Loss of corporate knowledge" was the buzz phrase from IE spin-doctors. I am sure they are all having a good chuckle about it now while eating prawn sandwiches in their new corporate box in the Aviva (Lansdowne Road)Stadium
Thanks for the comment.
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