Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Murphy for his presentation. What regulation is involved or what balances or checks will be in place for Bus Éireann routes that will be tendered out to private coach companies. Mr. Murphy spoke about performance targets and cost savings, but it all comes down to cost. I disagree with Deputy Ellis that the delivery of service will suffer as I believe it will be the smaller coach companies that will suffer. The reason I say this is that I am aware of a coach company which had a particular Bus Éireann contract for the past five years, but which has lost that business because the contract was put out to tender and another company undercut it and came in with a seriously reduced price. The company which was delivering the service had an extremely busy year last year, but was unable to make a profit. It pays taxes, does not use washed diesel, pays its employees PRSI, but is unable to compete with a number of other companies which undercut it by up to €100 a day. What regulation is in place to ensure the companies tendering for these jobs adhere to all the other guidelines?