Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. They have heard the importance of this issue. I will first ask them to take back our thanks to their staff who work so hard in difficult circumstances in a difficult job to provide vital critical services for the people of the greater Dublin area. The work they do in public transport, in providing the service, is critical to our climate action and climate challenges and they are at the forefront of that. We need to do everything possible as legislators to ensure, with the NTA, they can meet the climate targets we have set.

My experience of public transport staff is that none of them wants to cancel services, see service delays or let down the travelling public because they are committed to the work they do. However, the reality is that people have been let down quite badly. The communication from both companies has been poor and as public representatives, we have had to try to relay the reasons to our constituents when they contact us. I will give an example of a student working part-time in a restaurant in Bray trying to earn money, who comes out of work late at night on a wet October night and the 185 bus to Enniskerry is cancelled, as is the next one. That student ends up paying the small amount of wages earned that night for a taxi home. That is the reality of cancelling a service. That needs to be brought out.

I know none of the witnesses want to cancel services. I understand the difficulties with driver retention, those caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and traffic congestion but that is the reality. We need to get the messaging out in a much clearer way to people about why it is happening so that people have a better understanding why services are cancelled. They must know the reasons and not just be left standing in the wet and dark waiting for a bus that does not turn up.

I will ask a few direct questions. I want to clarify that the operation, regulation and co-ordination of public transport service requirements is the responsibility of the NTA. The day-to-day management of fleet, staff, provision and meeting those public transport service standards is the remit of both Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead. Are those statements correct? Okay, I thank the witnesses.

Were the issues flagged by both bus service companies to the NTA well in advance? Did they inform the NTA that they were having problems with drivers, Covid-19 and congestion and they would not meet their service requirements? Did Dublin Bus regularly flag that to the NTA?