Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

I could say easily answer "No" to the Deputy's last question. However, that would be unfair given the effort he made to provide context for the question. The NBRU disagrees fundamentally with the concept of BusConnects, where people have to get off one bus and get on another. Furthermore, the public consultation should be named for what it is. We have to get down and dirty on this. If I go to Ballymore Eustace and, without saying who I am, tell a person who uses the bus that the service is to be reduced significantly and that he or she will have to get a bus to Tallaght and get off again, I know what answer I will get when I ask what that person thinks of that. If I ask someone else what he or she thinks of a plan to increase the frequency of a service from every ten minutes to every five minutes, I will be told it is fantastic. We can carry out the public consultation from here.

Regardless of whether Deputy Lahart agrees with me on addressing congestion, many submissions have been made by the NBRU, colleagues and other organisations to the NTA and the Department over several decades. One of the central planks of the submissions about a reduction in congestion was to build park and ride hubs, north, south, east and west in this city. Some day, someone will listen to me and others who have made similar submissions. People have to get into bus rapid transit, BRT, and use it. I will not mention the metro plan because I do not know how many iterations of it we have seen at this stage. I have no doubt we will see another such plan in my lifetime. BRT would reduce congestion. We have done significant work on this already, but we have to do much more work on it. We will not do this for the sake of it. The Deputy and I are both in the business of representing people. I represent those working in the industry and those who are using the industry. My colleagues here do the same thing, under different banners.

This committee has to ask what the problem is with the current system. Our submission was not entirely negative. Senator Devine picked up on one line in our submission which suggested that we put the new orbital routes on top of the existing service. What is wrong with the current service? The bus lanes do not go far enough. Those that are built are blocked by traffic and no sanctions are applied to those who block them. Infrastructure has to be created to facilitate the current network. I do not understand the current approach and I certainly do not accept it. The NTA has decided that it will change the current network because it is not working. Can it show me what is not working? The infrastructure is not working but that is a different debate altogether. The services that exist, their frequency, and the fact that they go to housing estates in working class areas and peripheral towns such as Ballymore Eustace, Balbriggan, Greystones, Skerries and Malahide, are all to be welcomed. Why are those places different from a place that has a regular service every five minutes? People are not different because of where they live.

If the mistakes caused by decades of bad planning are to be corrected, houses cannot be knocked down in order to build them higher, even though that is what should be done in Dublin, and that is something that Dublin will have to grapple with at some stage. Jarrett Walker stated that if 15% of this plan is changed, it will all unravel. My colleague, Mr. John Murphy, picked up on that point. How dare Mr. Walker come to our city and tell us that if we do not agree with his plan, or remove 15% of it, everything will collapse? What gives him the right to say that? That is wrong and it is also wrong that we are beholden to people who have no responsibility, for example, the National Transport Authority. I am sorry for getting emotional about this, but I represent people working in the industry and people who use the industry. How dare we tell an old person or a person in a wheelchair to get off a bus and cross the road to get another? Who are we to do that?

I am sorry for using Deputy Lahart as a battering ram, but I fundamentally disagree with BusConnects because it is based on people being discommoded. That is not what public service is about. It is about helping people get from A to B conveniently, not running and racing around. Dublin is not London or Tokyo. Someone mentioned white gloves. People have to work and commute, but we should not insist that they get off the bus in all kinds of weather. The reference to building facilities is a joke. Bus drivers are here. Bottles are being thrown into bins full of you-know-what. There is nothing wrong with the current network; the problem is the infrastructure. We should fix that.