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

I thank the Minister. Regarding air passengers' rights, I see the issue of the time factor in terms of people hanging around airports. I support the idea that looking for five, nine or 12 hours seems to be much stronger than a three hour gap. We have all spent many hours in airports and for various reasons, things can happen. If it were to change, prices would rise and I am very fearful of that. Regarding the fourth railway package, the Minister is not in favour of mandatory tendering of the PSO. There is a constant drive from Europe to take it away from different countries and it is very worrying. It is a drive towards privatisation and it seems to be coming from the EU. Although we have always argued that we want to be exempt from it, it is constantly pushed on us and it is very worrying. The recent tendering of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann routes seems to be the result of this pressure from Europe.

Members of the European Parliament should be fighting our corner regarding where we are with this tendering process. Most European countries use some type of PSO and we are among the lowest users of PSO. Is it the case that other European countries are in favour of retaining the PSO and do not favour mandatory tendering? I would have expected Belgium and other countries to have opposed this process. They have huge rail infrastructure and if we were making that argument I would have expected to have received support from them.