Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

With regard to Deputy Harrington's point, according to the annual accounts of Dublin Bus last year it received €69 million through public service obligation, PSO, services, €13 million in capital grants and €5.3 million in emergency funds. It received €107 million to carry 115 million passengers. Of course the Minister had to question this. Over a five year period Bus Éireann received €292 million in subventions and capital grants and the number of passengers decreased by 51 million. At present, 58 buses a day go between Dublin and Galway but there was only one bus a day when there was a monopoly. This proves the benefit of competition and we now have 57 or 58 more drivers. Young people in particular travel in this way. Such routes are also developing from Dublin to Belfast, Cork and Wexford. Mr. Matthews commutes from Dundalk to Dublin. Given that the Minister was faced with more and more public money being spent, with vast amounts of it not accounted for, I am amazed he stopped at 90% being given to the people here today. The market is going elsewhere and the services are good.

When they came before a committee yesterday, representatives of Irish Water stated every contract worth more than €400,000 must be open to competitive tendering. I am glad they did not have a direct award contract or they would have given the entire €85 million in an unaccountable way. We must have competitive tendering. We must examine what is happening in transport. Some of what I heard was like what Aer Lingus used to argue against competition. It held back the country for years. To put out 10% of the routes in five years will mean it will be 50 years before we have a competitive bus service. This is what is holding it back as far as I concerned. The Competition Authority has questioned this and it is not obvious on the NTA website how it selected the routes. Why were the commuter routes west of Dublin substituted? No information was available to potential tenderers about the expected levels of subsidy on the routes. I do not believe what the Minister has done is competitive enough.