Mr. Willie Noone:

I know my colleagues have responded to some of the questions posed so I do not want to repeat what has already been said. I will, however, deal with some of the specifics.

Deputy Barry asked about the triple-lock that was attained by the trade unions to try to protect our membership against the worst consequences of tendering. The registered employment agreement has come into being only in the last few weeks. The reason for that is we had to wait on the legislation to enable it and then there were a number of hurdles for the unions and the companies in getting the agreement up and running. It is now in place. No movement has been made with regard to the sectoral employment order and no movement has been made with regard to the legislation. These are serious weaknesses.

That leads to what Deputy Catherine Murphy raised regarding conflict between the NTA and the trade unions regarding their roles. I can give two examples of what that conflict involved. The NTA has a specific role to regulate and manage transport, particularly in the bus market. It believes, as we understand it, that conditions of employment are not its area of expertise or not its worry. In the negotiations we raised the issue of pensions and pensions not coming under the legislation. There is a conflict there because our role is a double-barrelled one. We are trying to protect our membership, which is our first priority and we do not apologise for that, but we also have a role in trying to protect the consumer or the general public and ensuring there is a proper system in place for them. The NTA did not consider pensions not transferring to be under its remit. When it came to the question that was posed by it seeking to tender out work for periods of time, we were in discussions at that time regarding a number of people who were employed in one of the bus companies. We said that these people are now permanent, they are going into a pension scheme and they will be paying into it long term. The response we received was, "Why did these people not just get fixed term contracts, for these are the terms of the contracts of employment?". That leads back to what my colleague said about driving conditions within the transport sector to the bottom. That is why we believe the NTA may have a conflict regarding what it believes is a good transport system.

With regard to Deputy Munster's questions about Nos. 12 and 14, and I will not question the Deputy's reason for selecting those two points, the answer to both, like the answer to many of the action points we said were supposed to happen but did not happen, is simply that the subvention levels were cut. As a result of that, the Government did not link PSO subvention to growth in patronage, did not introduce a seven day transport service for rural communities and so forth. I might add with regard to linking the PSO subventions to growth in patronage, this trade union does not agree with that. If one links PSO subvention to growth, it means that areas where there is no growth will get no increase in subvention. That does not make sense. Our learned colleague who had to absent herself has stated that in order to draw people into public transport, one must make it attractive. Therefore, one must invest and put money in to attract people. However, if one links patronage to the PSO, one will only drive the system downwards in the long term.

Senator O'Mahony asked about how to get the subvention levels back to what we believe are appropriate. There are a number of ways to do it. One can insert stages and do it incrementally. One might have an issue about the timing of it and how long it will take to bring it back to what we believe is the optimum level, but the crucial element here is that one commits to that and delivers on it, albeit it might take a longer period of time than the unions might be seeking. So be it. One is committing to a service that everybody can buy into and there are no hidden surprises, no cliffs for people to fall off. We who are looking after people in the transport sector are living from year to year. One year we get a promise that there will be subvention, and then we do get subvention. Senator O'Mahony and Deputy Troy asked whether transport provision would be improved if the level of subvention was increased. Obviously it would. If it is decreased, it will drive down public transport. However, increasing subvention alone is not sufficient. I remind the committee that Dublin Bus was given subvention last year, but what was given with the right hand was taken away with the left hand because subsequently €2 million was taken back because it had made what was believed to be an unreasonable profit. Increasing it on the one hand and taking it back on the other does not make sense to anybody.

With regard to the pension issue that is before the WRC at present, that is not subject to debate here. The issue SIPTU wishes to raise regarding the pension is that circumstances should lead to an equal playing field, which is central to the debate we are having here. Other operators who are tendering for public transport do not have a legal obligation to pay a pension. That alone means there is no level playing field. The other issue, as we included in our submission, is taking the cost of labour out of the tendering process. Transport companies, by their nature, have high labour costs as a percentage of their overall operating costs. If one allows contractors tendering for the right to provide services at the minimum rate of pay, which is currently €9.25 per hour, it basically means that established transport employers such as Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann or other private companies in which we have members cannot compete. They know that every three or five years a contract will be issued again and unless they are paying the minimum wage, they cannot get that contract, because everybody else will be tendering on the minimum wage. This has not been addressed. On numerous occasions we have sought a level playing field. Taking out the cost of labour would at least level the playing field. The trade unions have always stated publicly that we are not afraid of competition and never have been. We do not buy into the ideology that competition is good in all circumstances but our members in Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and other bus companies have lived with competition all of their lives. Even within the CIE group, Bus Éireann buses are competing against rail services and other private companies. There always has been competition. All we have sought is a level playing field.

There have been allusions during this debate to practices that take place in the real world. We have stated, and we are not shy about doing so, that one does not have to be an intensive investigator to find out what the practices are. All people need to do is look at the contracts of employment of the people who are employed by the employers who are tendering for these projects. The devil is in the detail. When one reads in the contracts of employment that people will not get paid if there is no bus available, that means that when they go to work and there is a fault with a bus, they have no bus to drive and under the contract they go home and do not get paid. It means the person is under pressure to drive the bus, because if they do not they will not get paid. Matters such as these must be highlighted.

With regard to Deputy Barry's comments on Irish Rail, although there have been cuts in subvention to Irish Rail, it has always had, and continues to have, a very good record on safety. The only issue I can raise regarding how near we are getting to standards slipping in that regard is that, while everybody in Irish Rail is committed to ensuring that standards remain as high as possible, in circumstances where the rolling stock and the infrastructure do not receive investment on a regular basis, it means that maintenance costs will increase continuously. The danger of something failing obviously increases as well. That is standard risk analysis. There had been huge under-provision of subvention to Irish Rail for a number of years.

Prior to 2008, investment was made in rail. While it was not sufficient at the time, it has since been acknowledged that it brought Irish Rail into the 21st century. The stark figures presented in the submission demonstrate that the level of subvention has fallen off a cliff. If this trend continues, at some stage, we will only have a proper rail service operating on the Cork and Dublin routes.

The Government appears to have bought into the theory that it wants to get bang for its buck. When one is faced with a choice of investing in bus and rail services or the road network, it is difficult for rail to compete. We must be cognisant that rail can never compete on the basis of getting bang for one's buck. It competes on the basis that it is a more environmentally friendly option than roads. If one keeps building roads, more cars will use them and congestion will build up again over time. This is not the way to develop transport policy. We must have an integrated policy in which rail, buses and other modes of transport have a place. I believe I have answered the majority of questions.