John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This meeting is not about the matter I am about to raise but I will take the opportunity to tease it out a little. I have made the point about the livery, which caused a few chuckles. Perhaps people did not grasp the point completely. It was not about the colours - although the colours of the Dublin Bus livery, as Senator Dolan will know, are pretty significant - there was a great deal of investment and of communication with disability groups in designing it. When one drives around the city, Dublin Bus buses are instantly visible. That was one of the purposes of the choice of livery. We are not London, where the red bus is iconic. Dublin Bus is a semi-state, taxpayer-funded company. It is about ensuring that it is entitled to determine its own future as a taxpayer-funded company, notwithstanding the powers the NTA possesses. Theoretically, there could be a situation, if I am correct, whereby Dublin Bus could tender as an independent semi-State company for contracts outside this country.