Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend all of the workers and drivers who experienced that horrendous, disgraceful event last Thursday. We often see on social media that drivers - in particular those who are non-Irish nationals - occasionally experience abuse, which is absolutely to be condemned.

I have one question I wish to raise, which is related to buses being told to skip bus stops. This has been particularly bad in the Ongar area, which is in my constituency in Dublin West, in the past while. I have spoken to bus drivers and union reps who have confirmed this. I wish to give the witnesses a flavour of what people are telling me about it. I rang Dublin Bus today and the representative told me that when traffic is bad, the 39A bus starts in Hartstown and does not serve the Ongar loop. They said that this allows the bus to catch up to the original timetable by leaving out half the stops. They said it is a one-off, but it has been going on for weeks. I will give another example. I stood on the Ongar route in Allendale and four buses did not show up. Two weeks before that, five 39As passed which were out of service. It is the same in the afternoon coming home from work on the 37, 39 and 39A. They all come to stops packed because buses are not showing up and with all the kids coming from school. Another example was in the early morning. It was the same thing – a cancelled bus. I am sick of it. It is bitterly cold out. There were a number of incidents of this nature in Ravenswood on the Ongar loop - I was waiting on the bus and it was cancelled - in the past few weeks. I waited 40 minutes on Saturday evening for the 39 from town. When one was due, it changed to a 39A. Why does it seem to be more important to be seen to be on time than to pick up people who are standing at bus stops along the entire Ongar loop? The area that seems to be particularly badly hit is from the Hansfield area, which is where the terminus is, right up to Beechfield into Littlepace down by Castlegrange and then down towards Allendale. It seems to be that is the most affected part. Bus drivers are being told to ignore and leave all those people at the bus stops, who need to go down towards either St. Joseph's or, if it is the 39A, in towards the Hartstown area. Why are we leaving people at bus stops? Why is it more important to be on time?