Mr. John Murphy:

I want to come in concerning the charter. We see the charter as the third string to the bow in terms of what we are looking for, and we think it links in. I will take the Deputy back 12 or 18 months to when I was highlighting attacks on workers in accident and emergency units and the healthcare environment. It was publicised and, as far as I know, there is now something on the wall in the hospitals about a charter, patients’ rights and workers’ rights. We see this as a mechanism to try to educate people, particularly young people, so they are aware of the problems and consequences of what they are doing. Most of the providers and operators of public transport engage on a regular basis with local communities, particularly where there are high levels of antisocial behaviour.

The Deputy probably saw 12 months ago that Dublin Bus pulled its services out of west Tallaght because of repeated antisocial behaviour occurring after 6 p.m. The way that was resolved was by members of the trade unions, including SIPTU, members of management, local community activists, local TDs, local councillors and local community gardaí sitting around and discussing the issue to see how it could be brought to the attention of people within the area. These types of areas are heavily reliant on public transport. We need to educate young people as to what is acceptable and unacceptable. We need them to know that the consequence of this behaviour is that it is likely that there will be curtailment or withdrawal of public transport services, which will impact their mothers, fathers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers and people within their community and their family who are depending on public transport.

It is about making it an awareness campaign to educate people. Going forward, we would like to see education at school level. While it could be for public transport, it could even be a society-wide charter to educate young people on what is acceptable. However, the consequences of not adhering to or not trying to stay within the charter need to be spelled out to people. We can only see that as a positive.