Mr. Kevin Traynor:

The previous speaker mentioned Nassau Street, for example. The coach park is approximately 20 minutes from the core city area of College Green. There are legal restrictions under the working time directive and on driving time. The Chairman will be aware how long it takes to travel up from his constituency. A driver can only drive for four and a half hours before he has to take a break. Basically, my concerns are that if there is a short time duration in Nassau Street and the driver is at his optimum time, he does not have time to go down the 20 minutes and back the 20 minutes, taking into account the traffic congestion. While I accept there is limited parking, the problem is there has to be some space provided for a temporary lay-off to allow the driver to take his 45-minute break, particularly if he is picking up passengers in that College Green locale within, say, an hour or whatever, if they are visiting Trinity College and going on. That is a major consideration for the future.

Deputy Fitzpatrick made a valid point that private operators are getting licences from the National Transport Authority to provide scheduled route services. The State providers have designated coach-parking hubs where they can park vehicles up and clients can go to. There is no provision there for the private operator in terms of route licences and that is where our main concerns are.