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

The consequence is that people are left on the side of the road. One can see from those comments that many people are being left behind. The particular area that seems to be the most badly affected is the Ongar area, and that needs to be addressed.

I got a couple of comments from the bus drivers and union reps. First, there used to be what are called “universal buses”, which would be able to slot in and fit into the holes. I can understand we are under serious pressure regarding that but their understanding of it is that the reason there are no universal buses is because they will not be paid for by the NTA. Second, buses used to be bumped up. For example, if a bus had to pass for whatever reason, the next bus would be told to take off. However, now they are told to wait until the scheduled time to take off. It seems the priority is to keep the schedule on time and ignore all those people who are standing and waiting for the bus and who could be waiting a very long time for that bus.