Mr. Andrew Edwards:

I am the managing director of Go-Ahead Ireland and I thank the committee for inviting my colleague, Mr. James Caffrey, and me to today's session.

Go-Ahead Ireland is contracted by the National Transport Authority to operate 30 routes in total: 25 outer Dublin metropolitan area routes operating from our Ballymount depot, and five Dublin commuter routes operating from our Naas depot. Since we commenced operations in 2018, our team has grown to more than 650 people and as a local employer and service provider we are an active member of communities across Dublin and Leinster. This includes our partnerships with Dublin GAA, the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, FamiliBase, AsIAm, and the National Council for the Blind, to name a selection.

We are a part of Ireland’s hugely ambitious effort to promote and provide public transport to help reduce emissions and tackle climate change. We are excited to be a part of this step change, challenges and all.

Given the importance of our role, along with our fellow providers in the NTA and Dublin Bus, we understand why we have been invited to meet the committee to discuss the provision of bus services in Dublin and the current issues that exist. We want to take this opportunity to say that we acknowledge there have been issues related to our services. We apologise to customers who have been negatively affected. It is absolutely accurate to say that Go-Ahead’s services have suffered along with those of other operators over the past number of months. These issues have been caused by direct and indirect occurrences.

As with all areas of society and the economy, the past two years have been extremely challenging for the transport sector. As we recover from the pandemic and associated issues, we have been impacted by staff shortages. Our ongoing requirements for staff, and existing drivers returning to their original pre-pandemic industries, are important factors. While we have consistently run a proactive recruitment campaign since the beginning of the year, our efforts to get drivers on the road over the past several months were hampered by an unavoidable external backlog in acquiring essential paperwork for commercial drivers.

Furthermore, in September of this year, Go-Ahead Group suffered a cyber security incident which impacted operational ICT systems in the company’s bus businesses, including software used to schedule drivers and services. This came at a time of increasing service demand with schools and colleges returning, and increasing road traffic and challenging weather conditions, which were important day-to-day issues associated with that time period. All of these issues combined have had an impact on our services and, most importantly, on our customers.

As part of our ongoing activities to address the direct and indirect challenges that have impacted services, we have undertaken several actions. We have continued to recruit, increasing our efforts across all our operations, appointing a dedicated recruitment manager, and expanding the recruitment team. Due to these sustained efforts, we have received more than 750 applications in the past six months. Just under 150 new drivers have entered service in that period. In addition, we have more than 100 drivers awaiting essential paperwork who are ready to start once that paperwork has been processed in our training department.

We also currently have 90 drivers in our training school. Some of the previously mentioned paperwork backlog has been cleared with the assistance of the Road Safety Authority, which is now speeding up parts of our recruitment drive, and we continue to work closely with it on other items. We have also implemented programmes designed to improve and support our retention of staff, including incentive payments for drivers who stay with us until the end of March 2023. We offer all of our drivers a pension scheme, life insurance and free GP appointments. We also cover the costs for all necessary training, compliance and paperwork requirements. Furthermore, our systems have been restored to full capacity and we are continuing to undertake ongoing improvements to drive efficiencies and enhance performance across our operations.

Prior to 2020 and throughout the pandemic, it should be noted that Go-Ahead Ireland consistently met the service requirements under our agreed contractual obligations. We have in the past received incentive payments from the NTA for operating services to a high level. We fully acknowledge, however, that in recent months our services have been impacted, like many others in Ireland and across the world, and that this has had significant consequences for our customers. We understand that those consequences mean real personal inconvenience.

We are, however, absolutely committed to addressing these issues, as illustrated by the work we have undertaken, and are working to attain those success levels again. We understand that there is a need to rebuild trust in our services and we are determined to do that. Our work to drive improvements is ongoing and will continue.

Over the past month, we have already seen a marked improvement in performance on most of our routes. Overall complaints have dropped and a level of reliability has improved. With the new drivers coming on stream and overall improvements combined, we anticipate that we will be running at full capacity across our services in the next four to six weeks based on our current projections. This is taking into account internal and external factors. Over the past few months some members have visited our depot to see first-hand the work of our teams. I would welcome anyone who wishes to engage with us further to do the same. Again, I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. I am happy to take any observations or questions that members may have.