'Crazy' to award €50m rail contract to company, says transport minister

Fundamental issues lie with the procurement process by Irish Rail, says Darragh O'Brien, adding that it is 'being addressed very seriously'

Transport minister Darragh O'Brien said he is comfortable with the governance at Irish Rail, adding there are 'learnings' for the agency. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

Thu, 22 Oct, 2026 - 16:26

Tadgh McNally

It was “crazy” that a contract to deliver a new train management system was awarded to a company that had never delivered a similar product, transport minister Darragh O'Brien has admitted.

Spanish corporation Indra was contracted by Irish Rail to design a new traffic management system at a cost of €50m.

The system would have been used to dictate the flow of train traffic across Ireland, and was initially forecast for delivery in 2024 at a cost of just under €20m.

It was part of a wider project to deliver a train control centre at Dublin's Heuston Station, with the building being completed in 2022.

The project was written off earlier this year, after Indra provided Irish Rail with a product which had a litany of systemic issues.

The Spanish firm was later fired by Irish Rail over failure to provide the project.

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Mr O’Brien told the Oireachtas transport committee on Thursday: “It appears to me that this system was awarded to a company that had not delivered a system and didn’t own the IP.

“That’s crazy, actually.”

Mr O’Brien said fundamental issues lie with the procurement process by Irish Rail, adding that it is “being addressed very seriously”.

“This will be dealt with,” Mr O’Brien said.

He said he has yet to receive an outline from Irish Rail of the final financial impairment over the failed IT project.

Mr O'Brien said he is still comfortable with the governance at Irish Rail, but added that there are “learnings” for the agency.

Asked separately about proposals to ban horse-drawn sulky racing on public roads, Mr O’Brien confirmed a draft scheme would be ready either for late 2026 or early 2027.

Mr O’Brien said there had been commitments to deliver legislation to ban sulky racing on roads in 2019.

“This is actually a really important piece of work… It’s not good enough that it has taken this long,” Mr O’Brien said.