Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Dublin Bus still has the slogan of "serving the entire community". It is still on the back of the double deckers in Dublin. I remember the imp buses very well too. The witness referred to the national children's hospital - I live in its shadow - and how it will be impacted. There are stops on the Luas red line in Rialto and in St. James's Hospital. The hospital is packed with cars probably because the buses have been removed from it. They are being removed further with this and it is ignoring the interconnectivity with the Luas in the city.

There are also to be interconnective hubs and it refers to places such as Blanchardstown and Liffey Valley, which are busy areas. I expect it will try, as did the national children's hospital, to use the Red Cow for staff who had to travel when a car park was removed. Every morning we are told by the "Morning Ireland" programme to avoid the Red Cow, so how will that work given the overflow and chaos that occur there?

I am delighted that the representatives continually refer to a public service and a social service within that. This is very important. It is a disgrace and it is unacceptable to not have this infrastructure designed in from the get-go and that persons with a disability, such as the guy mentioned by the bus driver, are unable to access the bus. As an able-bodied person I can jump on and off the bus but a person with a disability will find it absolutely impossible. This could lead to more isolation. There are swathes of areas, especially in the inner city and in housing estates, where bus stops have been removed. We are told that the distance from a housing estate to the nearest bus stop is now nearly 400 m. An older person or a person in a wheelchair must now travel nearly half a kilometre to access public transport, never mind trying to get onto it if a person is disabled. It is an awful long way to go and people will just stay in their homes.

I am not a permanent member of this committee. I am standing in for Deputy Munster but a suggestion for this committee would be to do a press release with all of this information. The most important thing to do is not let the NTA away with the short timeframe allowed for the public consultation. We attended the meeting at the Royal Hibernian Academy and the deadline was extended to 28 September. It is completely unacceptable. Dublin is empty in August and we need to ask for it to be extended. A press release might be a way to give the NTA a bit more of jolt into respecting that.

By 2040, the population of Dublin will be almost 2 million. We need to do something about our transport, 69% of which is private car use, compared with 4% public transport. Compare and contrast this with other European countries. The population of Dublin will reach 2 million and we have to plan for a lot more capacity. As a councillor, I was on the Dublin Bus forum for a long time. The threat of cherry-picking of routes for privatisation was an issue that came up constantly. I am not sure of the figures but the people are putting billions of euro into our public services and by God, it will not be privatised. It is ours. It is a gem and we need to make it more accessible to everybody and get this city moving.

I thank the representatives for their presentation because it sheds a better light on it. Can I clarify that the unions are agreeable to inserting the orbital routes but keeping the rest of the structure there? Perhaps the witnesses will tease this out a little for me as it is quite important.