Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the NTA representatives back. I thank them very much for their engagement and for the briefing material they supplied.

I will focus on something we raised when they were here last year, namely, real-time information, which the NTA addressed in its annual report. It calls them disappearing buses; I call them phantom buses. Some fees have been levied at some of the operators, in particular Go-Ahead. It did not necessarily improve all its routes - I think it has ten - but it is a serious problem. At a time when we are trying to incentivise people to use public transport, real-time information is simply not working on some of the routes. To focus on Go-Ahead, at the time, the NTA told me it was engaging with that specific operator and fines were being levied, as I said. However, some of the routes, such as the No. 63 route in particular, are simply not working. I asked for figures for complaints the NTA received, which it sent on. I thank it for that but I shudder to ask for the figures again, although I will do so. I want to compare the volume of complaints the NTA is receiving as an organisation with the engagement it is having with that specific operator.

We have a serious problem on our hands if commuters cannot rely on public transport, especially when we are saying there is real-time information and people are looking at the screen, but the bus simply disappears from that screen. I am sure the NTA will agree with me that it is not acceptable and should not continue. How will we address it?