Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister to give detail on the NTA service replacement on the portion of the Dublin to Clonmel route. The NTA has repeatedly stated that it leaves no rural community behind. However, it is talking about removing an existing service and replacing it with another that will also cost money - perhaps even more. There is no logic to that.

The Minister had previously said that replacement services might not be as frequent or as comfortable as current services. The Minister is saying to the people that they need to be prepared to accept a second-class service. Does the Minister feel putting out such a statement is acceptable? It is not something to be proud of to say the people need to accept a second-class service that will not be as frequent or comfortable.

Does the Minister accept that EU Regulation (EC) No. 1370/2007 provides enough scope for the State to provide support for Bus Éireann if it could be established, through a review of all Bus Éireann current commercial services, that some of its services could be deemed as socially necessary? Since taking up office did the Minister ever call for such a review given that it could be a mechanism to save the service?

We are blue in the face from asking the Minister the same questions over and over again. Is he still prepared to sit back and do nothing? He has repeatedly refused the call for all stakeholders, including his Department, involved to sit around in negotiations to try to find a resolution. I ask him not to give the spiel that he will not get involved in an industrial dispute. It is not necessarily an industrial dispute. It was forced into this situation. The Minister was asked if representatives from his Department, the NTA, and Bus Éireann management and unions as the main stakeholders would get involved and he repeatedly refused.

Today, in the jaws of an all-out strike across the public transport network on Monday, he is still refusing, knowing full well the disruption and chaos it will cause along with the worry for people living in rural communities that services will be cut. While knowing fully that the unions had pleaded with him to get into negotiations and knowing what lies ahead on Monday, he still refuses point blank even to send officials from his Department at the 11th hour to try to prevent this disruption.

Given that I and others have repeatedly asked the Minister and have listened to him repeatedly refuse, if he still sits here today and says he will not call for all stakeholders to be involved, then he and the Government will be directly responsible for the chaos that will ensue across the public transport network on Monday. The Minister has been given every opportunity to try to resolve this. Bus Éireann's management bulldozed ahead with its cuts on 16 January. This week it then sent out a further inflammatory letter knowing it would fuel the situation and the Minister still sat back and did nothing.