Campaign for Sensible Transport - NRA member resigns

NRA member resigns

Mr. Peter Langford tenders resignation

The Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST) learned last night that Mr. Peter Langford, Chairman of Arup engineering consultancy firm, who are bidding for the East Link Tunnel project, resigned his position as member of the National Roads Authority (NRA). Mr. Michael Egan of the NRA claimed that Mr. Langford resigned so that he could lead the Arup team in the bidding process. “Ove Arups felt that Mr. Langford would be of better value to them in leading the bidding team than sitting on the board”, Mr. Egan said. Mr. Egan added that Mr. Langford would not bring any inside information to the Arup team bidding for the project. His comments were made at a public meeting in Clara, Co Kilkenny on Thursday July 20th last.

Campaign for Sensible Transport member (CaST) view this as significant, but it falls short of its objective of having an NRA board entirely free of conflicting commercial interests. Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST) has been calling for the resignation of Mr. Langford and other members of the board because they have conflicting interests.

This is the first public announcement on this matter. Mr. Egan said that the resignation took effect from sometime in June. The resignation was made to the Minister for the Environment, Mr. Noel Dempsey.

Friday July 20th. 2001