Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Nolan for his statement. It is in all our interests to find out as best we can what is going on between Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus, the NTA and the unions, although I am not going to delve into certain issues. While I see Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann as belonging to the State, what we have is the Minister blaming the NTA and saying it is offloading routes and putting them out to tender. It is a drive towards privatisation and I sympathise with the workers who see it coming down the road. This is only the beginning in the offloading of routes.

Had they been looking at new routes and following some of the directives from the European Union that might have been one thing, but we are talking about existing routes. In the case of Bus Éireann, we are talking about 100% of routes in Waterford. I do not know how Bus Éireann has interacted with the NTA on this issue. Has it been totally opposed to this plan or is it going along with it because it is being forced to do so by the NTA and the ideology of the Government? We have been seeing huge increases in the numbers of passengers and income. Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are becoming more economical in managing funding. The PSO levy has stabilised - at the least the Government has stopped cutting it - and we are still managing to deliver a good service.

In London, in contrast to what the NTA is proposing, routes are being taken back and subsidised more. I would like to get a feel of the interaction between the NTA and Bus Éireann in this regard. I would also like to find out what Bus Éireann is going to state to commuters about how they should handle this issue. What are their alternatives if the strike goes ahead? I hope we will negotiate up to the last minute. My worry is that although the parties involved are in negotiations on existing workers, they may not negotiate on conditions for future workers. We are talking about protecting workers, but protecting workers into the future is also very important. The parties involved should not just seek to do a deal for a certain number of workers.

Two options were being proposed in terms of workers keeping their jobs, but I do not know how we can guarantee even these two options when we are dealing with private companies. If they win the contracts, how can we say workers can transfer to them and retain the same rights and rates? Furthermore, down the road when there is a new worker, the position will have changed. That is wrong and it should not happen in the first place.