Mr. Gerry Murphy:

With regard to the benefit to customers and the British experience of deregulation, this is very different. There are two British experiences, one of which is deregulation outside of London. It allowed for a commercial response that was uncontrolled and unmanaged by the state authorities. There was a controlled response within London, which is a regulated sector. Transport for London decided everything and put routes out to tender. Our model is very similar to that of Transport for London. There is no case that commercial considerations drive the quality of service for the public. Senator Mooney asked whether we have cherry picked high-value routes. In fact, we have done the opposite. Local and orbital routes for Dublin Bus are, financially, some of the poorest performing routes so it is not the case that we are cherry picking high-value routes.

Internationally, over the past 30 years, bus tendering has grown throughout the world. The markets have opened up. In Europe, only three countries have not used competitive tendering, namely, Greece, Northern Ireland and until recently the Republic of Ireland. In fact, Ireland used it for M&A Coaches contract in Portlaoise, the first public subsidy service that we put out to tender. The services we are putting out to tender are subsidised public service obligation services. While there may be commercial operators on corridors, they are not doing the same job as the public service obligation services. They are multi-stop services serving areas that commercial services will not serve because they are not commercially viable.

The Chairman asked me about letters for comfort. Any letters of comfort that apply within the companies will apply. It is up to Dublin Bus to identify the staff they consider are changing with the service and it is up to new organisations, if it is not Dublin Bus that wins the service, to take them on. Dublin Bus must then manage the issue of letters of comfort and contractual conditions of its workforce.