Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

I am conscious of the time. I will commence with the questions asked by Deputy Catherine Murphy as she has said that she must rush off.

I will start by replying to the last point that she raised. I live near Clonee in west Dublin, and the other night people asked me about this matter because they read about it and know who I am. I made the point that there was a negative response from me and my submission reflected same. The people pointed out to me that they bought their houses very recently. Almost 7,000 houses will have been built where I live between last year and the end of this year. Some of those people found their way to the local pub and had these conversations. They said that they bought their houses because the 39A, 39 and 38 buses were available and frequent. Let us not forget that some people only have one car now but years ago people had two cars. The good bus service in the area means that people can commute to the city for work and their children can attend various schools, which are very important issues.

Deputy Murphy asked the NTA about some of the peak services that go beyond Lucan. The NTA indicated that some services will travel directly to the city at peak times. Yes, but not as much as they are now and that is a fact. Some of the services that the NTA thinks go beyond Lucan will go to Adamstown. Of course, the NTA did not tell the Deputy that fact.

In terms of the public consultation, the NBRU will be involved. The Deputy made a very good point that elderly people do not engage online and have no notion of ever engaging online.

It is okay to say there are public meetings. I have a slight reservation about Dublin Bus. It is positive that it is involved from one perspective, but from my experience I fear that Dublin Bus is in a type of Stockholm syndrome where it is beholden to the NTA and the NTA is the master of all it surveys. That said, it is involved and we will take the positive from that for now. We on the union side will keep an eye on its contribution to ensure it is not going to be negative.

There is a high level of change in buses. The population increase in Deputy Murphy's area is going to be significant. There is no extra capacity in Irish Rail. My understanding, and I am open to correction on this, is that the next time there will be an increase in the Irish Rail fleet will probably be 2021 or 2022. There is little point in having a BusConnects plan kicking in during December 2019 and January 2020 that pushes people towards trains if they are already full. That is contradictory.

With regard to the privatisation debate that took place, I have covered some of that. Deputy Troy put the same question. Obviously, there was much uneasiness in these chairs when that question was being asked. People can call it franchising, tendering or whatever they wish, but for us in the working community and the trade union family, it is privatisation. My colleagues represent people in the private sphere and, of course, they will endeavour to improve those conditions. That is what trade unions do. Dublin Bus's tender for the 10% it lost was 5% cheaper. That is on the public record. Given its actions, it shows the NTA is determined, and the ideology demands, that it will move further if it is let go further. As Deputy Troy said, this committee should have a role to play in how it moves forward in 2019.

Regarding the public consultation, the unions will make themselves available. Who knows the industry better than us? People should not lose sight of what we said in our submission. In the middle of all the negatives, we did not go near industrial relations issues. There might well be industrial relations issues following this in time, but we do not know. At this juncture, however, we are getting involved with the communities we serve and looking out for them. The people who drive buses are in the community, and we could not deliver the service without the people who work in maintenance depots and the offices.

On Deputy Troy's other question, there is a concern about the potential commercialisation of Dublin Bus. We fear that is what will happen, and what better way is there to create an environment where private operators will step in than to create a mess or come up with a plan such as BusConnects? It creates corridors directly into the city from places such as Celbridge, Balbriggan, Greystones, Bray and Blessington by creating a new service called BusConnects and creates that gap. There is a fear that commercialisation is at play here.

I will make a last point before letting my colleague speak. It is about the bus design, and Deputy Troy took up this point. My two colleagues have sat on that committee from time to time over the years. Without labouring the point it is an absolute disgrace that people with disabilities, who use the service and need it more than most, were not consulted.