Mr. Gerry Murphy:

The reason the current programme was cut was due to insufficient money available in the Government coffers. Deputy Ross is asserting that there was a rationale to force efficiencies. We advised that public transport is one of the lowest subsidised public transport systems in Europe and any cut to subsidy would lead to a cut in services. The only way we can prevent significant cuts in services is to look at fares increases and try to grow passenger numbers through initiatives such as the Leap card, real-time information or to try to steady passenger numbers - which has been achieved this year - across all operators. Our task in applying our contract which has onerous service requirements, such as frequency, reliability and quality factors is to rigorously enforce that contract. I can say that since December 2009, CIE met all the targets and its performance moneys have been released to it, except for one minor exception for Saturday services by Dublin Bus. Each year we have strengthened the parameters in those contracts and we have disaggregated the reporting. For example, when we started the contract Bus Éireann was reporting on a global basis, we have disaggregated reporting by city, by Dublin commute and by other services. We have disaggregated reporting in Dublin Bus by corridor and brought greater depth of rigour in its own analysis of its operations.

Our function is to monitor the contracts. The contracts are operating satisfactorily. We have preserved the bulk of services in the State, notwithstanding a significant drop in public subsidy from an already very under-subsidised public transport system. By 2014, €80 million a year will have been taken out of the subsidies to public transport, amounting to a 25% drop in what was an under-funded sector. At the same time, generally bus services in Dublin are satisfactory, the rail services are satisfactory and the service on rural and city buses outside Dublin are provided. There have been service reductions but we have tried to minimise their effect. We have had fares applications from each of the operators. We have asked for increased information to support the applications. We have not accepted all the fares applications and have made significant reductions in the fares CIE proposed. At the same time in the Dublin area we have incentivised the use of the Leap card and have introduced significant differentials from the cash fares, which are the highlight fares. We have more than a 19% differential on rail, a 15% differential on light rail services and a 12% differential on Dublin Bus. If customers had moved to using the Leap card instead of cash on Dublin Bus, they would not suffer an increase in fares. There is a strategy in place.

In regard to intercity rail pricing, we have simplified the system by eliminating the anomalies resulting from the historical legacy. We now have a single journey, a day return, and an open return. We have moved to distance and corridor-based pricing, reflecting journey speed. It will take five or six years to get all the anomalies out of the system. The end objective is to get a transparent easy to pay fares system which moves to smart card payment, which reduces the handling costs and increases the frequency of buses by reducing boarding time. There is a strategy to the way we increase fares, there is a rigour to the approach we take to analysing the fares increases.