Mr. Ultan Courtney:

On the public transport network, the first priority for Dublin Bus is always to provide an efficient transport service to Dublin city and county. In terms of our current transport service, the NTA has put forward the proposal that 10% of Dublin Bus routes be put out to tender. That is a reality that we may have to face. It is a policy decision, which may also be required under EU legislation. This will have an impact on Dublin Bus, but we will deal with it as we move forward. The bigger issue for Dublin Bus is how to increase the business regardless of what market we are in, be that public or private. Currently, revenue growth is hugely important. Dublin Bus has shown over the past year or two that it can increase revenue. It is necessary that we look at opportunities to increase revenue, because we cannot sustain a bus service on constantly cutting costs.

Any of us who has been involved in this kind of process knows that there is only so much one can do. There have been three rounds of it in Dublin Bus and now we want to look to a more positive future where we are growing the service and becoming more efficient. We will operate in whatever market we have to operate in, whether it is the public market, which we are in currently and which will be the predominant market for a long period, or some other. There is competition and I have no control over that. CIE or Dublin Bus has no control over that but if there are routes out for tender, we will compete for them. Dublin Bus has provided an effective transport system in Dublin. The challenge is to become more effective. Many of the initiatives taken in terms of the service in recent years have been to do that and to make it more customer-friendly, usable and to attract people onto the bus, which is very important.

Deputy Ellis asked whether people should be allowed to use bus lanes. I have a slightly different way of looking at it; I want to get people onto the buses if I can. I have learned over the years that the use of bus lanes - if a route is a priority one on a bus lane and there is no competition in terms of its use - are probably the most effective way of moving a large number of people from A to B. The real competition is to persuade the person commuting by car by bicycle or walking that the bus is an option that can be used in conjunction with healthy exercise such as walking to travel to and from work. We want to get people onto the buses and to make travelling by bus an experience with which they are satisfied and that they are prepared to pay a reasonable rate for it, but that will always be the challenge. I believe the bus lanes work but they should always be under review. There should always be opportunities to discuss whether they are working and how well they are working.

That brings us back to the rapid transport system. I do not know how that will work in Dublin. We will have to wait and see. It is well worth trying to see how it will work because it has worked in other cities and it is a model that can work. The issue is to make sure that it works well. The last thing we want is to have a satisfied group of people travelling on the rapid system and another group of people who are dissatisfied. A key point I have learned over the years is to listen to one's customers because they will tell one what they want and if one does not listen to them, they will vote with their feet and go elsewhere. We do not want that to happen.

There is a bigger focus in that as it is a public service, it also has a commercial element to it. We want customers to be satisfied. We want them to travel by bus and on getting off the bus to say that was a good experience, they had access to Wi-Fi, they used their Leap card, the service is better than it was and it is going to be better as we move forward. The challenge for us as we move forward is to balance the public and the private, the idea of the passenger against the customer - I prefer to call people customers rather than passengers - and to make it a very good experience for them.

That brings me back to the question that was asked about the subvention paid. The subvention is a part of the revenue of the business. I would like to grow the other side of the revenue stream, which is to generate as much income as possible from the business we do on a daily basis and to explore other opportunities. From my initial reading of the material, I wondered if we had examined all the opportunities to raise revenue. I do not have the answers here today. From a board perspective, that is an area we need to examine in detail and to ask if there are other ways to make money that we have not thought of because we often view the bus service as simply that, a bus service, but there are other opporutities we should examine. It is a question of trying to get that balance right.

In terms of public transport system, there are people who rely on the bus service, who choose to travel by bus and there are people who are marginal whom we want to target. Everybody accepts that we have to provide a service in a city of this size, which, geographically, is very spread out. The argument often arises as to how we should do that. At present the Government has decided to do that by way of providing a subvention, other people would say direct support should be provided to the people concerned but that is another argument. The service is provided by way of subvention and that is part of the social contract between Dublin Bus and the Government. We take that and our responsibilities in that regard very seriously.