Ms Moyagh Murdock:

Our chairperson wrote to the chairperson of Bus Éireann in May 2017. At that time, through roadside inspections and the annual commercial vehicle roadworthiness test, we saw a worrying trend that the rate of improvement was very slow and we were not satisfied the improvements required in school transport were happening as they should. As Bus Éireann was at the time, and still is, the main provider of the school transport scheme it was incumbent on it to ensure it had a robust procurement practice in place to ensure anybody tendering for a school transport contract met a minimum standard of roadworthiness. At that time, we did not believe robust enough measures were in place to do so and that it was playing catch up with the operators who had contracts and were already out there providing services. Since then, it has adopted a very different approach to tendering and people must demonstrate before tendering that they meet the minimum standard instead of winning the contract and then trying to establish whether they are safe operators.