Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

Anyone who knows me and my trade union, in particular, knows that we have a fundamental objection to some of the interventions that the NTA have made over recent years. There is no point in saying that the NTA is going to be going anywhere any time soon. It is the national transport authority. A number of issues were raised during the previous session that we have concerns about. Nothing that was said brought any comfort in respect of our view on BusConnects.

If the changes being suggested and the orbital or radial routes are imposed on top of the current network, we will not have a problem. The NTA officials admitted that they will eliminate 10% of the direct routes to the city and we are interrogating this issue as can be seen from our submission. When one considers that there were 140 million passenger journeys last year, a 10% reduction means the loss of 14 million journeys. The vast majority of Dublin Bus journeys are made into the city. Deputy Lahart referred to Rathgar earlier. He took the 15 bus and there were 12 buses. He did not know where they were going but I know that all 12 of them were going to the city.