Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will discuss all that next week.

I thank Dublin Bus, that is, not just Mr. Coyne but all his 3,600 staff members, who do so much. It is only the problems that we hear about and it is only when something goes wrong that I end up calling him or one of his team. When things are going well, which is 99.9% of the time, we take the service for granted. It is only when a bus goes missing on the real-time passenger information, RTPI, or when something else goes wrong that issues are highlighted, and while that is rare, it does happen from time to time.

Mr. Coyne referred to the Brexit challenge. I am not sure what the Brexit challenge is for his company, so he might elaborate on it. Fuel costs are increasing significantly. Mr. Coyne might address how Dublin Bus is dealing with that situation. I am raising with him some issues to which he might reply, as I do not wish to make too much of a speech. How is Dublin Bus dealing with antisocial behaviour and how much of a problem is it? I was in London three or four years ago and I could tap my credit card on the Underground. I did not need the equivalent of a Leap card. I was amazed that the Underground knew when I tapped on and off and that it took the right fare without having any idea of who I was, given that I had not registered for anything. Is that what the MaaS system is about or are we anywhere near that? As users of Dublin Bus services, what technological upgrades will we see? The Leap card is great, but what percentage of fares are collected in cash? I am sure it is falling to a low percentage. There will always have to be cash. I remember campaigning for every second or third 46A service being cashless and Dublin Bus claiming that it would lose money. The world has moved on. What do we need to do to ensure a modal shift and get more people out of their cars and onto bikes, footpaths and scooters as much as onto buses? When will the Dublin Bus fleet be a more electric and hydrogen one than it is a fossil fuel one? What is the fleet's age? I used to be on a bus route that had the oldest buses because it had the least gradient, so they broke down less on our routes than on any other. That was 20 or 30 years ago when Deputy Matthews was installing electronic machines on them. We see brand new buses, but we also see buses that are a little older than we might at first think.

I just threw a load of questions at Mr. Coyne instead of making a long speech. He might touch on them.