Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend earlier, but I did get the opportunity to read Mr. Murphy's presentation. One of the concerns I have about the privatisation agenda is that I believe it opens up the potential for the future privatisation of our public transport network. I am concerned about the possible development of a fragmented network. I believe the current operators do an exceptionally good job at maintaining the joined-up network, but that may be undermined when the privatisation process starts. I am also concerned that this process will not necessarily lead to a reduction in costs to the State or the delivery of a better service.

Some years ago, a previous committee had the opportunity to visit London Bus and it was made clear to us at the time that the privatisation agenda there did not work. The companies that won the tenders in that case became totally profit centred, with the result the service deteriorated. Regardless of the existence of service level agreements, the bidding contest became so great that people found themselves unable to provide the service and allowed it to deteriorate. There was poor timetabling, poor delivery of service, poor quality of buses and consumers moved away from taking public transport. When the government had, effectively, to take back the operation of London Bus, it had to invest heavily to rebuild confidence. I accept that the same is not happening here, because of the stepped approach of commencing with 10%, I see it as the beginning of a process I am disappointed the Government has allowed to happen. I am particularly disappointed the Labour Party has allowed this to proceed.

There is an issue also of the impact this will have on existing licence holders. The transfer of undertaking will ensure that the individuals associated with the routes tendered will have to transfer to the new companies. I suspect this will have some impact on Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus. I also suspect it will add to costs for them because currently costs are spread across 100% of the network, but now they will be spread across 90%. I believe the change may also lead to increased fares. We had a similar situation in the case of electricity, where the regulator required the price of electricity to increase to attract competitors into the market. That was a farcical situation and we may be taking the same route here in order to meet our commitments on the introduction of competition and, perhaps, pursue the privatisation agenda of Fine Gael.

I believe the NTA could have continued with the direct award process, which would have complied with the EU requirements and ensured we ended up with the best service.