Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 1 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport
Urban Public and Sustainable Transport: Discussion
2:00 am
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss urban public and sustainable transport. I will call on the witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order: the National Transport Authority; Bus Éireann; Go-Ahead Ireland; and, last but not least, Dublin Bus.
On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to welcome from the National Transport Authority, Mr. Hugh Creegan and Mr. Jeremy Ryan. From Bus Éireann, we have Mr. Stephen Kent and Ms Jean O'Sullivan. From Go-Ahead Ireland, we have Ms Dervla McKay and Ms Niamh Swords. Finally, from Dublin Bus, we have Mr. Billy Hann, Mr. Phil Donohue and Mr. Ciarán Rogan. I also acknowledge the other members of their teams.
Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings.
I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members participating via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.
To begin, I invite Mr. Creegan to make his opening statement on behalf of the NTA.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the invitation to appear before them today. I understand the committee wishes to discuss urban and sustainable transport.
To assist me in dealing with questions that may arise during the session, I am joined by Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services.
Transport investment and provision in the city metropolitan areas across Ireland is now guided by published transport strategies. In the case of the Dublin region, the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022-2042 was formally adopted as a statutory transport plan for the region in early 2023. It provides a framework for the development of transport infrastructure and the delivery of transport services across the region over a two-decade period, with provision for review and updating every six years.
While the greater Dublin area transport strategy was developed as a statutory plan under specific legislation, similar transport strategies have been developed on a non-statutory basis in other cities. Working in partnership with the relevant local authorities, transport strategies have been published for the metropolitan areas of Galway, Cork, Limerick-Shannon and Waterford. The transport strategy for Galway was completed in 2016, the Cork strategy in 2020, the Limerick-Shannon strategy in 2022 and the Waterford strategy in 2022. Each of these transport strategies sets out the key transport projects and the relevant services that are required to be delivered to provide for the growth in travel demand by sustainable modes. They cover all modes of land transport – walking, cycling, bus, light rail, heavy rail, roads and freight – and consider accessibility requirements, integration with planning policies and climate action objectives.
Public transport use continues to grow at exceptional levels. Overall, passenger numbers on contracted bus and rail services in 2024 were 32 million higher compared with 2023, an increase of 10.6%. Passenger numbers increased on all service types last year, from rural transport to the urban rail services, with the largest increases evident across the bus network in Dublin. Unlike many other international jurisdictions, overall public transport passenger numbers in Ireland now significantly exceed the 2019 pre-pandemic levels, with 344 million passengers carried on State-provided services last year compared with 295 million in 2019.
Welcome as these passenger numbers are, this level of year-on-year increase brings its own challenges in being agile enough to respond to increased capacity needs in a near-full employment environment where specific resource types are in short supply. For the assistance of the committee, I attach, as an appendix, a short briefing note which sets out the status of certain infrastructure and services in the transport area. This concludes my opening remarks. I welcome any questions that members of the committee may have.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I thank the Cathaoirleach, Deputies and Senators for inviting us to take part in today’s session. I am pleased to be joined by Ms Jean O’Sullivan, our chief people officer. She will present and help me with any questions members may have. Bus Éireann is expecting to deliver over 115 million passenger journeys this year, expanding on our record-breaking achievement in 2024. We operate all 216 of our public service obligation, PSO, routes under contract to the National Transport Authority, NTA. We have also tendered and have been awarded contracts for Waterford city services, the eastern commuter corridor, the Carlow town service, the 245 service for Cork-Dublin and, most recently, for the 310 service in Limerick, a new contract we expect to commence on behalf of the authority early next year.
For over 57 years, we have operated the school transport scheme on behalf of the Department of education. This is the largest such scheme in Europe, now operating across 10,600 routes. This year, we will carry in excess of 178,000 children to school each day. The number of school transport tickets issued has risen by 5% against this time last year. For context, working with the Department, our team is now providing services for 50% more children than in 2018.
Our commercial service, Expressway, operates across 14 national routes and will carry a further 4 million passengers this year. The scale of this service delivery would not be possible without the support of all our stakeholders, contractors and, most especially, our hard-working staff. Bus Éireann is a people- and customer-centric organisation and I am proud of our staff, their dedication and commitment. We are committed to delivering a valued public transport service across Ireland.
We are committed to ensuring we deliver the highest levels of service quality. Performance management of that service has never been more prioritised, especially as we grow and know that more people than ever now rely on our service. However, with a growing population and the constraints of existing road infrastructure in our regional cities and towns, there is no doubt that congestion continues to be a serious challenge for consistent service delivery. In Cork, which is Bus Éireann’s largest urban service, only 2% of the kilometres our services operate are in bus lanes. I firmly believe that the opportunity exists to deliver greater bus prioritisation infrastructure in Cork, other regional cities and the greater Dublin area to unlock the full economic, social and sustainability potential that public transport usage will bring to our society. Bus Éireann would welcome further focus and development at local level to parallel the significant investment made in recent years in providing additional bus services and resources across the country.
As we have grown so significantly in recent years, recruitment has become a critical priority. Bus Éireann is running an ambitious nationwide campaign to meet future needs as we prepare for the introduction of new initiatives for the NTA and the Department of education, which will significantly expand services over the next three years. In 2024, we hired 500 new staff and have already held over 50 open days across the country, with more to come. We are active participants in the Department of Transport’s public transport workforce task force, which is developing cross-sectoral responses to this shared capacity challenge. I look forward to delivering real impact through this forum. As I have previously indicated, I believe Ireland needs at least 2,000 drivers over the next few years to meet planned increases in services through the NTA and through the Department of education for the school transport scheme. Delivering on that scale of recruitment requires significant focus and co-ordination.
Our most immediate short-term recruitment challenge is in Cork. While we are currently short 17 drivers - we have a pipeline of drivers in training - we will need to do even more to meet the needs of BusConnects early next year. In this respect, in addition to the advertising of open days and our collaboration with the Department's task force, we will go overseas this autumn to begin our first tranche of recruitment of drivers who hold D licences. Bus Éireann provides quality jobs in local communities across Ireland. We encourage anyone interested in joining our company to go to our website's careers portal where they will find out about a career with Bus Éireann.
Bus Éireann is committed to delivering on the decarbonisation of public transport, advancing the transition to electric vehicle, EV, services. This EV transformation must also be paired with a transition to high-blend biofuels. Bus Éireann has started introducing HVO across its fleet but I should signal that this will increase costs, which must be funded either through the Exchequer or from Revenue for commercial services. To support the cost of the transition, consideration of a carbon credit or decarbonisation supports for business is now more critical for a faster and more financially sustainable shift. This needs to be examined if we are really earnest about driving climate action sustainably.
As I conclude my seven-year tenure as CEO of Bus Éireann this month, I will leave this role very optimistic about the future of public transport in Ireland. In my time, I have seen Bus Éireann grow from delivering just over 83 million passenger journeys in 2018 to, as I said, growing to 115 million passenger journeys this year. That trajectory of growth and demand can and will continue with the support of the NTA and local authorities.
We continue to focus on ensuring our services are accessible and inclusive for all our customers. We have committed to sustainable practice across our company. We have built on our achievements in Athlone by upgrading Limerick’s bus service to Ireland’s first fully electric city fleet, enabling over 90% reductions in emissions. These results highlight the significant impact we can have as we transition more services.
We have introduced so many new services on behalf of our stakeholders, including Carlow town’s first ever bus service. We need to continue increasing frequency and expanding services as there are still many towns and villages in Ireland that need to be connected. School transport has grown significantly, from 120,000 pupils each school day in 2018 to over 178,000 today. For many families, it is considered their most valued public service. Growth, however, is not free and we urgently need to support the trajectory and ambition of this growth with more investment in new fleet, additional resources and new technology to manage this level of scale within the organisation. I mention this progress only as a source of confidence that while we will always have some short-term challenges in this industry to overcome, we continue to adapt, grow and collaborate to deliver. Bus Éireann is well positioned to deliver continued growth and decarbonisation for all our citizens, once investment continues.
I thank the Cathaoirleach for inviting us. We look forward to the discussion.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Kent. I remind the final two witnesses that they have five minutes for their opening statements. I am delighted to invite Ms McKay to make her opening statement on behalf of Go-Ahead Ireland.
Ms McKay is the managing director and is accompanied by Ms Swords, who is head of operations.
Ms Dervla McKay:
Good morning, my name is Dervla McKay and I am the managing director of Go-Ahead Ireland. I am joined today by my colleague, Niamh Swords, who is the director of operations. We thank the committee for its invitation to join today's discussion on urban bus services, alongside the National Transport Authority, NTA, and our fellow operators in Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann.
Go-Ahead Ireland currently operates 31 routes in the greater Dublin area, including five commuter routes, serving 22.5 million passengers annually. As a public transport provider, our commitment has grown consistently since our establishment in 2018. As public transport in Ireland continues to grow, we continue to recruit to add to our almost 1,000-strong team of bus drivers, mechanics, operation staff and additional management professionals. Our ambition to provide safe, reliable and accessible public transport to our passengers is underpinned by the work done each and every day in our depots and out on the roads.
In our local communities, we play an important leadership role, as demonstrated by our partnerships with Dublin GAA, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, An Garda Síochána and more. We invest in initiatives run by the people who use our services and we work alongside other organisations in growing and strengthening the communities we serve.
When it comes to urban bus services, along with our fellow operators in Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann we face many of the same operational challenges that can impact services. While we pride ourselves on consistently meeting and exceeding our contractual performance targets, we acknowledge experiencing issues on occasion and make every effort to not only maintain but enhance the reliability and punctuality of our services.
Regarding the issues impacting public transport, as we have discussed with the committee before, congestion is the largest ongoing challenge. Improper use of bus lanes, overcrowded streets due to cars, roadworks and other associated issues can all combine to impact punctuality. Furthermore, another general issue is that of remote working patterns which have changed the times at which people use public transport. As such, commuting and congestion patterns are not as predictable as they once were and there are still times of the day when it is difficult to predict a journey's reliability or punctuality simply due to the fact there are not enough bus-only lanes or these lanes are being used by vehicles not allowed to operate in them.
Another issue that has been well publicised is the shortage of labour across the transport sector, notably in the area of mechanics. We are actively recruiting in the greater Dublin area and have had a record number of applications to our apprenticeship scheme, although a gap remains. To ensure we continue to meet the national labour shortage in this area, we have taken the step to recruit mechanics internationally and we will have a number join our business later this year. To facilitate the additional growth of our business and the wider public transport network, we continue to recruit drivers and have a strong pipeline in this area. We continually monitor our application pipeline to ensure we have enough new colleagues joining our business to keep our rosters full.
Although it is not a significant issue for Go-Ahead Ireland as it is for other public transport operators, antisocial behaviour is unfortunately part of the urban society in which we live and an issue we monitor with vigilance. Our drivers always prioritise the safety of passengers and we are grateful to them and to An Garda Síochána for its assistance when required.
In closing, while there are undoubted challenges facing urban public transport, at Go-Ahead Ireland we remain both ambitious and optimistic about the future. The ongoing rollout of BusConnects, the introduction of lower Leap card fares and the integration of ticket services are a few examples of the positive work being undertaken by the National Transport Authority and other stakeholders to further the development of urban public transport which we will continue to support.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms McKay for that.
Finally, on behalf of Dublin Bus, I invite Mr. Hann to make his opening statement. A reminder that Mr. Hann is the chief executive officer and is accompanied by Mr. Phil Donohue, who is the director of HR and development, and Mr. Ciarán Rogan, who is the chief commercial officer.
Mr. Billy Hann:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before them today. I am joined by Ciarán Rogan, chief commercial officer, and Phil Donohue, director of HR and development. This is a welcome chance to set out an overview of Dublin Bus's current performance and the challenges we face. I am proud to represent the dedicated workforce of Dublin Bus which serves our city and communities every day.
Dublin has grown, our population is rising, our economy is strong and the expectations of our customers and stakeholders are rightly higher than ever. In that context, public transport is not a marginal issue; it is central to the functioning of the city, the economy and the everyday lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Every weekday, more than 500,000 people choose to travel with us to work, school, hospitals and beyond. Demand for our services is at the highest level ever and that demand continues to grow.
For example, our passenger numbers have increased by 5.2% when compared to the same period last year. By the end of 2025, we expect to have carried in the region of 165 million customers. This growth is encouraging but it is also exacting. It demands we adapt, improve and make choices about service levels, staffing, investment and how we meet the public need.
Let me turn first to our operational performance because the measure of any transport operator is not what it promises but what it delivers. I want to stress that Dublin Bus is not perfect, but the data independently verified shows our service performance today is the best it has ever been. Services are more reliable, more punctual and more consistent. That improvement has not happened by accident. It is the product of sustained investment in our people, our fleet and our services. It shows what happens when we all work together and fund public transport properly. As we approach the budget, we have a choice to maintain the progress of recent years or to allow it to stall. Continued investment will mean more reliable services, safer journeys and a better product for the public. Stepping back would risk undermining the very improvements people are now beginning to see every day.
The next area I want to touch on is safety. We carried 159 million customers last year. Our success depends not only on punctuality and reliability but on trust, and that trust begins with safety. Antisocial behaviour has risen across our city and subsequently onto the transport network. Our drivers are not security guards. That is why we launched a safer journeys team last year in partnership with the Department of Transport and the National Transport Authority. It is practical, visible and targeted and it is working. Our drivers report feeling more supported and customers feel more confident but safety on public transport must go further. Dublin Bus has consistently supported the creation of a dedicated public transport police. Its inclusion in the programme for Government means this is no longer a debate about concepts but now a question of priorities and urgencies. What is required now is a clear implementation plan. It is important to stress that this will not be a silver bullet. We must continue to examine how best to further augment the support given to us by An Garda Síochána, improve technological solutions, expand community support forums and educate our schoolchildren. There must be real consequences for people who threaten or commit violence against front-line workers. Without accountability, deterrence is weakened and the safety of drivers and customers alike is undermined. We have all seen the threats made against the Tánaiste and other public figures recently. The principle is the same; threats and violence cannot be normalised or ignored.
I want to finish by addressing value for money. There is sometimes a perception that a commercial semi-State operator like Dublin Bus must be bloated or inefficient, especially when compared to other private operators. The reality could not be further from the truth. Every euro we spend is taxpayers' money and we treat it with the same care and discipline as we would our own. Efficiency is not an afterthought in Dublin Bus; it is central to maintaining public trust and political support. That is why we benchmark ourselves globally. Through the International Bus Benchmarking Group, an independent global network of major operators, we measure our performance rigorously. Its findings are clear: our operating cost-per-vehicle-kilometre is below the international average and has been falling since 2020. Passenger kilometre costs confirm we deliver better value per-distance-travel than most of our public service obligation peers, but value cannot be measured in financial terms alone. The return on investment from Dublin Bus is broader and deeper. We reduce congestion, cut emissions, drive social inclusion and support economic growth across the city. These wider benefits multiply far beyond the balance sheet.
In closing, I acknowledge Dublin Bus is only ever as strong as the trust people place in it. That trust has been built over many years by the commitment of our employees and the support of the public. I want to end by thanking them. I thank the Cathaoirleach and Members for their time. I look forward to today's engagement.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Hann and all our witnesses for their opening statements and for attending here today. As usual, we have a speaking rota. I want to make members aware I have received a communication from both Senators Mark Duffy and Imelda Goldsboro. Senator Duffy is allocating his time to Deputy Grace Boland and Senator Goldsboro is allocating her time to the committee vice-chair, Deputy Shane Moynihan.
Also, for non-members of the committee, I will ask all committee members to intervene first and then Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, as a non-member, will immediately come in and then any other non-members. I will then give members a second opportunity thereafter.
The order of speaking is Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, followed by Senator Nessa Cosgrove and Deputy Grace Boland.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My first question relates to staffing. My understanding is that one of our bus network's biggest challenges is the inability to get drivers and mechanics. That is now adding significant delays to improving services on existing routes and also represents a threat to the roll-out of BusConnects. Will the representatives from Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland speak to the challenges in terms of getting new staff? To what extent are they looking abroad? Are there any specific barriers to hiring new drivers and mechanics, for example, immigration or pay, that the committee could seek to progress?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Will the Deputy indicate who he wants to answer the question?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The representatives from Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead.
Mr. Billy Hann:
It is a challenge to get resources in a full employment market, particularly drivers and mechanics, as the Deputy referred to. From a Dublin Bus perspective, we have been very active in our recruitment campaigns for the past number of years. We have recruited over 1,000 drivers since January 2022. We have 89 different nationalities in our organisation. Staff are not just Irish nationals. Recruitment remains a challenge going forward. We are recruiting at a rate of over 400 people a year at the moment. We are going out to South Africa later this month to look at recruiting drivers from there, preferably people with D licences. We had to open up recruitment to B licence drivers in Ireland who take longer to train, which is more expensive. We had to do that to get the numbers in.
That is what we are doing from a drivers' perspective. From the mechanics' perspective, again there are real challenges with skills and tradespeople. This is not confined to mechanics but relates to tradespeople across various industrial sectors in this country. Dublin Bus is no different. We have had to go international to get fully qualified mechanics into the system. We started in Spain and brought in eight mechanics approximately two years ago. We brought in over 40 Filipino mechanics last year. We are currently recruiting another 20-plus mechanics from the Philippines. Some of them came over in the past couple of weeks. That is what we are having to do to bring mechanics in.
We recognise that there is a responsibility on us to have home-grown mechanics as well. We have bolstered our apprenticeship system in recent times and have over 80 apprentices in our system. As we know, an apprenticeship system delivers over a four-year period because it takes four years to qualify. Those apprentices will start to come out of the system next year. Numbers in the apprenticeship system are as high as they have ever been and our recruitment is quite strong to meet the demands of business-as-usual expansion and for BusConnects.
Ms Dervla McKay:
As I said in my opening statement, as a business we only came to Ireland in 2018 and we have grown to a team of nearly 1,000 people. In terms of our ability to recruit from a drivers' perspective, the team does an excellent job. Our pipeline is really strong. We have our 100 people in our school and over 100 who have applied and been accepted. The pipeline there for us is strong. There is a risk that this may run out at a point in time. We always keep a close eye on that. It is an area of huge and consistent focus for our business, but it is strong at the moment. That said, for the roll-out of BusConnects we may need to look at going international over the next few years. We have not pressed the button on that just yet.
As a business we have been extremely challenged in the area of mechanics. We have gone international and have ten mechanics from the Philippines due to join us in November. They were due to join us a little earlier but I understand from my team that there has been a change this year to how the permit system works. That has caused a bit of a delay in the system, adding about six weeks to what we originally thought it would take. Those mechanics are due to join us in November which will help hugely.
We have some ongoing dialogue with SOLAS on the upskilling of LGV mechanics to HGV mechanics. That is an area that could help and support us. As with Mr. Hann, we are also focusing strongly on the future of qualified mechanics. We had over 300 applications for our apprenticeship programme this year. This is a massive number for us and our biggest to date. We had four additional mechanics join us from-----
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank Ms McKay. We have limited time and I want to squeeze in one last question. The BusConnects roll-out started in 2021. Will one of the representatives from the NTA give me its best estimate of when all 12 of the corridors will be rolled out? Is there funding in place? To what extent does the ability of Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead to staff routes with drivers present a potential risk to the roll-out versus having the capital funding to do the works on the particular routes?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
There are two parts to the roll-out, namely, infrastructure and services. On the roll-out of the infrastructure project, we have now got planning consent for all 12 of the core bus corridors. The construction contract is signed for the first of those corridors, which is from Liffey Valley to the city centre. We are hopeful of signing a second contract for the Ballymun-Finglas corridor at the end of the October. We see the remaining ten schemes rolling out over a number of years. We cannot build all 12 schemes together. The traffic system in Dublin could not cater for that. It will be done in three tranches of four schemes each time and will take about seven years to complete them all. People will see them incrementally delivered along the way. These projects are all subject to the funding being available. We will have to wait and see.
On the services side, the challenge has been resources. The members have heard it here. It is a challenge to get driver and mechanic resources and it has impacted the pace of the roll-out. If resources are available to support the remaining BusConnects services and if the funding to run the services is also available, we will see the implementation finishing around the end of 2027. The next phase of BusConnects starts on 19 October with the F spine.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I am going to ask three questions. I live in Sligo and it is very disappointing to see that there is no project listed for the north west in the briefing documents. While I thank the witnesses for providing the documents, if you cut across from Galway to Dublin there is nothing listed.
The principle behind the NTA is "avoid-shift-improve" but it is very difficult for us in the north west to avoid the use of cars if we do not have alternative options. I had a very productive meeting last week with Mr. Billy Gilpin, Mr. Michael Power and Mr. Stephen King from Irish Rail regarding the inclusion of an early morning commuter service from Longford to Sligo. Under the public service obligation, PSO, services, can we have a commitment for that early morning service? The meeting I had was really productive. The Irish Rail representatives were really engaged but they said that the money is not in place. There is, however, a possibility that it might be provided. Could we get a commitment? The engineering department at ATU Sligo has done a full costings and its simulation showed that this service could work really well. We just need a commitment. When is it going to be reached?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
I think we wrote to the Senator about the early morning commuter service to Sligo. It does appear to have some merit. It will need a further review. It will be put in to the mix of potential service changes that we will review as part of the 2026 timetable changes. We will see how that goes. If anything comes out of that review, it will be subject to funding at the point.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Will that be a pilot, if it comes into the 2026 service? When Mr. Ryan said it is going to be-----
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
Sorry, no. We are going to review it, along with a lot of other proposals. There are quite a few proposals for timetable changes in 2026. We will review the proposal for a Sligo early morning service along with the other proposals across the State. Once we have that review done, we will see if we have the funding to implement the timetable changes required.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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There is another full year to wait before there is even a review done.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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A full study was done and it showed that it could work and that the trains and drivers are there.
The information we took from our meeting with Irish Rail was that the cost of a service is not enormous. Sligo is bursting at the seams, like every place, and needs housing. We have the successful ATU, which is building all the time, and student accommodation is an enormous issue. Petitions have been signed. We are in need and another year is a long time to wait.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
Unfortunately, the reality is that we have to change the timetables in December each year. That is the Europe-wide approach. Rail timetables change in December each year. We have seen the study but must examine it. We have to speak to Irish Rail about it. We work with Irish Rail on timetable changes. We have a working group with Irish Rail to take that forward. We will see how we go in 2026.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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That is going to be a new service. Does that come under timetable change?
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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The following question is for the representatives of Bus Éireann. Are there plans to link with Local Link services to include them as part of school transport? Most public representatives from rural Ireland know the success of Local Link. We are often asked when there will be new services or routes, or about the joining of routes. Are there plans to link Bus Éireann school buses and Local Link services?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
A number of pilots are under way and have been committed to by the Department of education. Some of those are integrated services. There are pilots in Longford and Limerick, running into Clare. Once those pilots have been evaluated, there is potential for that type of integration. It relies not just on the running of the services, capacity, timing and schedules, but also on ticketing and how we integrate Leap ticketing. Those are the issues that are being worked through as part of the pilots. I would like to think there is definitely an opportunity, but it is all subject to funding and the outcome of those pilots. There are a number in the pipeline, being run through the Department of education in consultation with the NTA.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
Some of them have just started. A number have been committed to. There are about 15 in play at the moment. We have regular quarterly sessions with the Department. Everybody is feeding back and we are all learning. It is sometimes not simple because the bus stop infrastructure is not there when children have to congregate. We must ensure the ticketing machines are provided and in place. There is a lot coming out of the pilots. Everyone has one eye on them. The Department of education is committed to a scheme that plans to expand to include an extra 100,000 kids by 2030.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I am running out of time. This will be my last question. Is there a change in policy that-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I will let the Senator come back in later. We will have a second round. I remind members that today we are focusing on urban services. We will have a separate module on 15 October about the rural service. Some of these witnesses will be before the committee again, along with other key stakeholders. I remind members of that. I will not prevent a member from asking a question relating to the rural element and it will be up to the witnesses to answer or not. I call on Deputy Boland.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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As Mr. Regan knows, I am focused on public transport in north County Dublin. I am a big fan of public transport. I want to do everything I can to support the witnesses' organisations but I also need to highlight the issues and severe challenges in north County Dublin. The Fingal area has the third largest population in the country. People forget that. The population is rapidly increasing. We need our public transport to mirror the increase in population.
I thank Senator Duffy for giving me two bits at the cherry. I will focus first on the 33 bus route, including the 33, the 33A and the 33X. I have been asking the Minister to set up a meeting with the NTA in relation to the 33 route and the proposed BusConnects route. The journey times on the 33 service are becoming increasingly long. The service itself is not really fit for purpose. The Coastal Bus Connects local group has done an awful lot of work around this. Its representatives would appreciate a meeting with the NTA. In the six minutes allotted, I will not be able to have the over-and-back we need to discuss considering how we can have a more fit-for-purpose service and moving some of the existing buses onto an express service to serve Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk and Swords. Those buses would also stop in Santry for DCU and Beaumont before going into town. An express service would speed up the journey time. Would Mr. Creegan be open to facilitating that meeting in the next few weeks?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I have to be careful because if we offer a meeting to one set of residents, we will have to do the same for every set of residents across the country. I am not saying we will not do it but my preference would be to get details of the proposal from the Deputy before we respond with what we think. Many such proposals make sense from the perspective of those proposing it but the issue will be whether we have enough funding to run a route and if it warrants putting in extra services.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It would not be a matter of extra services but diverting existing buses and making the route shorter and more efficient.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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People cannot get on the bus.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I would appreciate that.
I appreciate the NTA is probably receiving an awful lot of correspondence but I have found its responses a bit piecemeal. Is there a specific window in which we can expect responses? I do not know when to start hassling and following up.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I had asked about cancelled and partially cancelled buses on the 33, 33A and 33X routes but did not get a response to that correspondence. I have gone back in to ask for a response. In my research, I found a site, buscancellationsdublin.eu. Helpfully, the site gave me a list of all the cancelled and partially cancelled services since January. In the past two months, 49 buses have been cancelled on the 33 route and 133 buses have been cancelled on the 33A route. For a route that does not have that many services, that level of cancellation is intolerable. I have spoken to children in Loughshinny who get the bus to and from school and who have waited at bus stops for 90 minutes because buses have been cancelled. Those children are trying to use their phones to see if the app has updated to tell them if the bus is ever going to come or not, or whether it has been cancelled or not. When I ask parliamentary questions on the issue, I do not get a satisfactory response. Can we do something about the cancelled buses? Some of them are probably operated by Go-Ahead Ireland. What can be done to improve the service?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I am going to get help from Go-Ahead Ireland and Dublin Bus in a moment. Buses have to be cancelled for a variety of reasons. The committee heard in some of the other opening statements about congestion and the difficulty it causes. A service is meant to get to the end of its route and allow the driver to have a break before starting the return journey. That does not happen because of congestion. There are a variety of causes, including traffic accidents and events, etc.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that, but looking at the statistics it is happening every day. In fact, several buses are cancelled every day on this route, which is not a particularly well-serviced route. I know we are talking about urban services but north County Dublin is quite rural. Kids and adults are waiting at bus stops without shelters in rural north County Dublin with no buses. When people complain, they get really unsatisfactory responses from Bus Éireann.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There are 25 seconds remaining.
Mr. Billy Hann:
I thank the Deputy for her support of public transport. It is greatly appreciated. Any suggestions that she, her constituents or our customers make to improve services will be listened to gladly. Of course, we will consult the NTA to see what is possible to address and improve those services
When it comes to the website, I have seen it. However, I have not had a chance to follow up on this yet. I am not sure about the accuracy of the data on there, and it certainly does not give the details of why those particular cancellations occurred. As Mr. Creegan has said, there are myriad reasons as to why services can be cancelled at any given time.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I cannot get data from anywhere else, so I have to rely on-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I received an email from Deputy O'Hara who wants to allocate his time to the Deputy. It will be Deputy Daly next, followed by Deputies Moynihan and Collins. If Deputy Healy-Rae comes back, I will allow him in. It is back to Deputy Boland and Deputy Moynihan. Deputy Cathal Crowe has just emailed me about allocating his time. I will keep track of it all, but for the members who have been allocated two and three slots, I want every member to speak before I return to them for the additional slots, if that is okay.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair. I will kick off with a couple of questions for the NTA. A few of the operators have mentioned the challenges with the employment of mechanics and so on. Have any complaints been made to the authority about roadworthiness of vehicles or the situation in the depots because of staff shortages? Has the NTA carried out any investigations on foot of that?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
No. In terms of the State-provided services, I have not been informed of unsafe vehicles being operated. I have heard concerns expressed about some commercial operators. One such concern was expressed here at a hearing some time ago, but the State operators have a very high regard for safety and have good systems and procedures in place to ensure the vehicles they operate are safe.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Creegan mentioned that he has had some concerns raised.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Did the NTA carry out an investigation on foot of that?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The NTA has no oversight in that regard.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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When the CVRTs are being booked, they are usually done through the RSA portal. Has Mr. Creegan heard of anyone bypassing the portal and ringing up and booking in buses in that way?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I have a couple of questions for Go-Ahead. Ms McKay mentioned that the company had a record number of applicants and is hoping to take people on in November but that a gap remains. How much of a gap is it? How many suitably qualified mechanics does the company have and how many would it like to have?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Of the people working on the maintenance of vehicles, what is the ratio of qualified personnel versus non-qualified personnel or apprentices?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Ms McKay says the company is four mechanics short. How many fully qualified mechanics does it have?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The company is four short of the number-----
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Ms McKay might confirm that later.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I was asking the NTA about using the RSA portal for booking. Have the witnesses every heard of anyone in Go-Ahead not booking in CVRT appointments through the portal?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Is Ms McKay happy that the company uses the portal to access the CVRT all the time?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Ms McKay is confident enough that is what the company does.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Ms McKay said the company is recruiting. How many will it be bringing in next month?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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At the moment, who plugs the gap when the company is short? Is it non-qualified mechanics or apprentices?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I think it was Ms McKay's phrase. She said that a gap remains.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Are the contractors the company brings in all fully qualified mechanics?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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All the buses have wheelchair ramps at this stage.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Does Ms McKay know the detail of the process of installing those? Does she know how often they are inspected?
Ms Dervla McKay:
I do not. I am not a qualified engineer, so I would not be across the detail of that. I can tell the Deputy that our preventative maintenance programme operates the servicing of vehicles, which is done to a mileage base and manufacturer recommendations, and then our preventative inspection process is carried out on every vehicle every 42 days.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The company does not go beyond-----
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The RSA allows operators go over that to 56 days.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I have one last question. Have any vehicles ever been put off the road on the basis of ramp safety?
Ms Dervla McKay:
I have no doubt. As part of our requirements every driver has to do a first-use check of every single vehicle before it leaves the depot in the morning . Obviously, as part of that process, they will find defects. I have been in the industry 20 years now, and it is par for the course. I am sure they have found issues with ramps and other components.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Ms McKay has never heard of any of those.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Has Ms McKay heard of those? She said she was sure there have been-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Thank you, Deputy.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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-----but has she ever heard of any questions about roadworthiness as a result of problems with wheelchair ramps?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, but has Ms McKay ever heard of any vehicle being made VOR as a result of-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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The Vice Chair is waiting patiently.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Chathoirligh. I thank all the witnesses for coming in. I have met many of the people here in various guises over the past few months. I thank them for their collaboration. Like Deputy Boland and other colleagues, I am a great supporter of public transport. As a result, I assure the witnesses that all my questions come from a place of love and a desire to see our public transport system improve and go from strength to strength.
I have a few matters that I want to cover. I will start off with some of the operational parameters of the public transport system in Dublin and in our cities. On timetabling at weekends, I am frequently receiving complaints from passengers who want to use public transport and as all the representatives indicated in their opening statements, the number of people using public transport has grown significantly over the past 12 months. This is why it is very frustrating to get complaints from people who say they are not able to get on a bus because it is full, as Deputy Boland alluded to, or else the bus does not turn up. This seems to be a particularly acute issue at weekends, especially ones when there are major events on in Dublin city centre, for example. AS a result of various conversations with people in this room, it is becoming apparent to me that there seems to be some sort of block on operators providing flexibility in terms of the additional drivers they need to employ at weekends or to get permission to put on additional services to respond to demand.
I want to get clarity from our guests, Mr. Hann, Ms McKay and Mr. Creegan. Where does that sit? What is the blocker there? They can imagine how it looks to champions, such as myself and Deputy Boland, of public transport who are encouraging people to leave their cars at home at the weekend when they say that they were waiting at a bus stop for 45 minutes and two full vehicles passed them by. What is the answer I am supposed to give those people in terms of a public transport market, which is what the NTA wants to create, that is not responsive to consumer demand and does not facilitate demand? I will ask Mr. Creegan, first, if that is all right, and then Mr. Hann and Ms McKay, to respond to that.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I refer to various things. There could be a big event and a number of smaller events, but it seems flexibility does not exist for operators to put on additional services at short notice to address that.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
Our primary function is to operate the core bus system or scheduled bus system that we have. When an event it is taking place, sometimes we know about it and other times we do not. Sometimes we know about it very late; sometimes a little bit earlier. Sometimes there are multiple events on across the city because there is not always co-ordination between different event organisers. What happens in those case is, if it is possible to support an event with additional services, that will be done, but quite often those events are occurring at a point where do not have the ability to inject additional vehicles and additional drivers.
The committee heard already about the difficulty in getting drivers and the challenges there. There is no shelf of drivers and spare vehicles that we can inject into an event. If the operators have the capacity to provide an extra service, that will happen. There is no impediment, other than the availability of the necessary resources.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Is that the experience of operators too?
Mr. Billy Hann:
I thank Deputy Moynihan for his support of public transport. When it comes to the delivery of the PSO services, we are contracted to the NTA to provide those services. They are prescribed. The number of routes is prescribed. The number of bus stops, the punctuality requirements and the liability requirements are well documented within the contract. It does not include events. Dublin Bus is set up to provide a service to meet its public service obligations and meet its direct-award contract obligations.
When we get notified of events, through either Dublin City Council or the NTA itself, we will happily, if we can, provide extra services to that event, but it is not always possible and we cannot do it at the expense of protecting the core network. At times, we will bring in bus drivers on overtime, which, by the way, is an expense to Dublin Bus which is not re-compensated. That comes off our bottom line. We do provide that from time to time, but if I bring a person in on overtime, let us say, for an event on a Saturday, they are not available to me then on a Sunday or a Monday, depending on the time constrictions around that.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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In somewhere such as Dublin, for example, where there are consistently large events on in the city centre, how quickly is Mr. Hann able to go back to the NTA and have an updated weekend timetable, stating that Dublin Bus has seen a steady increase in the number of people going into the city centre, that it was 100 and it is fairly sure it will go to 120? How quickly can that be turned around into an updated timetable? How long does that take?
Mr. Billy Hann:
I cannot give the Deputy an exact time but I will give him the complexity around it. It is not only a matter of giving a new timetable. It is about having buses, drivers, mechanics to service those buses and depot capacity available. It is about the whole infrastructure that it is required to deliver the service on any given day. We cannot just turn on and off bus drivers. If we are looking at flexing up and flexing down for events, we would need to have that infrastructure in place.
The way to probably address it, and the way we are trying to address it in Dublin Bus, is getting more part-time drivers in and have them working X amount of days a week where we can flex them up or flex them down. We are only at the very early stages of implementing that. We have approximately eight part-time workers in. There is not a great appetite, believe it or not, for part-time bus drivers at this moment in time in the market, but it is something we are exploring and trying to do, and flex it up as quickly as we possibly can. We are not contracted to do that at the moment, however. That is important to recognise.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Would that fall back on the NTA in terms of contract design?
Ms Dervla McKay:
In terms of the large events, we put on some additional services with approval from the authority for some of the bigger events, particularly services from the airport, but, as Mr. Hann said, contractually we are not really set up to do that. In terms of getting a new timetable, the current process to be able to update the on-street signs would require an updated file from our scheduling system and then it would be required to go through the internal NTA technology processes, which I am not overly close with. That would take some time. If, for an example, on a Friday we knew something else was happening on the Saturday, under the current system there is no way we would get into a timetable and get that on the street and in the app, but there is the potential to get what I would call in my own terminology "a duplicate service", if there was approval from a funding perspective from the authority. While the customer might not see the capacity, it would still be there. It would at least be still clearing the bus stops for the people who are turning up. It is not possible to currently do that ahead of time.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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It sounds like contract design and information sharing seem to be the two issues at the core of this.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I have questions for Bus Éireann, the NTA and Go-Ahead Ireland. I would be here for an hour, if I could. Anyway, I will get started.
School transport has descended into chaos. There is no doubt about it. They are delivering on 178,000. Let Bus Éireann not think I am here being negative. Bus Éireann delivers services every day of the week. I want to say its staff are excellent and its teams are good. I am not being negative, but the problem with school transport is that the 178,000 to whom the service is being delivered are happy as they have a ticket but there are a good few thousand out there who do not get a ticket. There is no God-given right to a ticket, but there is no reason they should not get one. I will give Mr. Kent a few ideas.
This year has been no different from mid-August onwards. My office has been inundated, I presume the same as every other politician, with calls from distressed parents unsure how their children will get to school. The system is broken and, to be honest, the lack of communication from Bus Éireann and the Department of education is nothing short of disgraceful. Let me outline a few of the cases. One family applied through the online portal. The system kept logging them in and out. They received a ticket for one child but not for their other two children even though all three were eligible previously, and now. After trying the helpline, they were told to use a different device. Eventually, they were informed there were no seats available. These children are eligible but, through no fault of their own, have no way to get to school.
An issue in Ballinadee, west Cork, was raised in the Dáil last week. Parents were notified on the day of the pick-up that no bus would arrive. This went on for weeks. I sent representations to Bus Éireann and there was no reply. I contacted the Minister. There was only an acknowledgement. It was only when I demanded time in the Dáil to raise the issue and was finally able to speak on it that something got sorted. It was the same in Kilcoe in west Cork, where there are 13 children who are trying to get to Schull Community College. They are concessionary, but there is a 45-seat bus on that route with a lot of empty seats. Why are they not being used? Last Friday, nearly a month into the school year, I finally received an answer from Bus Éireann on several cases. What is the point of public representatives contacting Bus Éireann through Oireachtas channels if we cannot get basic answers?
I have questions on the NTA that I will probably have to leave until later. The following are the questions I have for Bus Éireann. Who is accountable for the failures in the school transport system? Will Bus Éireann help the children in, for example, the Kilcoe, west Cork area to get transport to school? Why are eligible children being left without transport due to system errors and poor communication? Why are there no contingency plans for concessionary students when buses have empty seats? Why are public representatives ignored when raising urgent cases? That is a very serious question that needs answering. Why is there no communication channel? There used to be but it is gone. It is closed solid. There is no such thing as maybe it happens and maybe it does not; it does not. Is it time for new leadership in the school transport section?
There was also talk of loss of drivers. We have been appealing on the issue of the drivers aged over 70. It looks as if the Minister is kicking the can over to Bus Éireann. Mr. Kent stated Bus Éireann needs 2,000 drivers. There are a lot of drivers over 70 who are healthier than any of us here. They can provide a medical certificate. Why has Bus Éireann not progressed that to the point of being able to give these people the right to drive a school bus? They drive buses during the day all right, bringing all the same kids to swimming, for instance, but they cannot provide school transport. The current system is not fit for purpose. It is failing families, children and communities. I am calling for a full review of the school transport scheme with clear accountability, better communication and a commitment to putting children first.
I will leave the remainder of my questions until later. I will concentrate on these.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
There is an enormous number of points there and an enormous amount of critique of what is happening in the management of the scheme. In all the years I have done, this has been a very good year despite all the issues arising from the expansion. I recognise that there have been significant demands but we have met them. Some 99.9% of the pupils who applied for tickets have been allocated a transport solution. That is on the mainstream scheme. As I have said to the Deputy, we have had a 5% rise in school transport tickets over the last year and that is on what was already a big volume. That is extremely significant. We have had a 9% rise in SEN applications over the year. That is extremely significant. As the Deputy will know, to a large extent, these applications require not just the provision of a vehicle and driver, but also an escort.
In the time I have done, the figure has moved from 5,500 routes to 10,500 routes in the space of seven years. Something very positive is happening to get an extra 50,000 kids on transport each day and that should be recognised. However, as I said in my opening statement, the scheme continues to expand so we will continue to require more drivers, more vehicles and more investment in new technology for all of those systems. The Deputy mentioned two or three families. I will take the details from him straight after this meeting and we will get him a response if he has not already had one.
I have to try to separate what we are doing into two parts. One is that Bus Éireann operates this scheme on behalf of the Department of education and we have to apply rules and criteria. These are very specifically guarded by the Department of Transport and are approved by this Oireachtas. All we are doing is implementing a Government-approved scheme. The Deputy has asked about children not getting onto the scheme. If there is a change to the eligibility criteria for the scheme, we will apply it. That is all I will say.
The Deputy has asked whether we can accommodate children. If those children are eligible and if a transport solution can be found, we will lift up everything. As the Deputy will probably know from our staff, we are always hunting options down through public procurement. We engage with taxi operators and do everything we possibly can to provide a transport solution. We do not want to let any family down. I have mentioned that this is the most valued public service in the State. Loads of parents have told me that. We will move heaven and earth to get a service. I just want to say that to the Deputy but, if he knows of families with issues, I will deal with them.
On the question of the over-70s, if the Cathaoirleach wants me to address it, the issue is complex. When I mention the 2,000 drivers, this is because the NTA has announced a very positive initiative in BusConnects. Connecting Ireland is also coming and we have the expansion of the scheme. The number can be consolidated. We are going to try to firm up the number required over the next three years through this Department of Transport forum. Based on where I see normal retirements and expansion going, it will be at least 2,000 in the next three years. On the over-70s, if the Chair will allow me, we have-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I ask Mr. Kent to be very brief.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
On the drivers, our issue is that, no matter what we do, we have four studies, including one that came out late last year that was commissioned by the Department of Transport and the RSA. The problem is that the report clearly says that we would be derelict in our duty to operate this service safely given the level of risk that we would have to accommodate. Lines in that report say that the evidence of risk of crashes rises markedly over these ages, that there are increased levels of multiple illnesses and that there are challenges in managing the significant burden of distraction in school bus environments. These are all things the board is reading in expanding the scheme.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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We may come back to this. I know other members may raise this particular issue so there will be additional time.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will direct my questions to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Creegan of the NTA. It sounds like the NTA is in a holding pattern of sorts at the moment. The budget allocations are coming next week. I hope the authority gets what it needs. When it comes to large infrastructural projects, the legal barriers to DART+ West have been dealt with so there are no barriers to progress. However, the Department of Transport is now required to prepare more detailed investment plans setting out delivery priorities and the funding envelopes available for transport projects over the next five years. What does that mean for the NTA? Where are we? What are the stages leading to getting shovels in the ground? I ask the same questions about BusConnects core corridors.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
As the Deputy will know, the review of the national development plan concluded in July of this year. Unlike previous plans, it did not flesh out the details of the individual projects. This was moved to the line Departments. The Department of Transport has its overall allocation year by year for the next five years. It now needs to distribute that across the various sectors it is involved with, including roads, active travel, public transport, rail maintenance and so on. As part of that, the Department has to produce an investment plan saying what funding is available year by year for the next five years for, for example, our area of public transport and what can therefore be accomplished and what projects can be delivered. It is challenging to deliver all that we have. We are now in the happy place that we have 12 core bus corridor schemes that have come through the planning process, although a few still have to go through judicial reviews. Three railway orders have now been granted. We hope MetroLink will come through very shortly. There is a portfolio of things to do. The Department of Transport now faces the challenge of divvying up its budget and telling us what we can do over the next five years. The Deputy is quite right to use the term "holding pattern". Nobody in the NTA, myself included, knows what we are going to be able to deliver over the next couple of years until the Department of Transport finishes that plan.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I hope it is a portfolio and not a bottleneck. On BusConnects, as Mr. Creegan will know, the B spine is in my area. The roll-out of the routes has been pushed back. Previously, it was to happen in late 2026. We are now looking at early 2027. The NTA has said this is to do with staffing and funding but this means that existing services in our area are really important. Some 4,000 new homes have been built over five years. We are seeing the behavioural change we want to see. Bus and rail service numbers went up by 10.6% in one year. However, that is not uniform across all areas. Where BusConnects routes have been rolled out, passenger levels are up 48%. Where they have yet to be implemented, they are only up 8%. Mr. Creegan and I know, because we have talked about this, that new services are being prioritised over existing services. That means that some areas are being prioritised over others when it comes to our existing bus services. That is reflected in the funding. In 2022, €15 million was allocated to new services across Dublin Bus when only €39,000 was allocated to existing services. In Dublin West, that was €97 in 2022 and nothing in 2023. I know all of the funding pressures the NTA is under because we have discussed them at length. I thank Mr. Creegan for that time. Will he comment on that and on how important it is that we see the allocation of budget towards existing services in this budget so that all areas get a really good bus service and commuters are not left behind?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I confirm that we are fully supportive of that objective. There has been a lot of investment in public transport over the last number of years. The Deputy is right; we have seen phenomenal growth in the numbers. Other international jurisdictions have not yet recovered to their pre-Covid levels while we are way beyond them. That is indicative of more and more people finding the public transport system useful to them. The challenge is that demand is increasing and we need to be able to fund the additional services we need and we need resources in terms of drivers and mechanics to run them. The Deputy will have heard all that is happening on the resources side. On funding, I do not know what our 2026 budget to support these services is going to be.
However, we would welcome recognition in the budget of the need to support public transport at a level that is enhanced by comparison with what it is now to allow what the Deputy is legitimately looking for.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Is the NTA going to deliver our Dublin West bus services?
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is not fair that there is inequity between areas. We should not be penalised because our BusConnects services have not yet been rolled out.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We are not consciously penalising any area; we do not do that, full stop. We just do not do it. It is not a case that new services are prioritised. We do try to put in additional capacity where we have problems because we do not want to leave people behind. None of the operators wants to leave people behind. I do not believe it is as black and white as would have us say we prioritise new routes over keeping existing ones going. No, it is the other way around. In our minds, you have to keep what you have operating properly. There is no use investing in new services if you cannot keep the existing service going. However, we have more to do in Dublin West – hands up.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will start where Deputy Michael Collins finished in relation to the 70-year-old rule. I spoke to Mr. Kent about this before and I am very concerned about it. The rule is ageist. Mr. Kent went as far as saying the RSA or some group was saying it would be a dereliction of duty to allow drivers of 70 or beyond to drive. What about all the 70-year-olds driving children to football matches, swimming and all the other events, in addition to all the 70-year-olds driving in many other instances? There was a driver from Tralee driving all over Ireland until the other day. He was 86 years of age when he finished. He did the Ring of Kerry every day and went to Galway, Dublin and Belfast for Power’s transport services in Tralee. We are being very unfair here. As I believe I have asked Mr. Kent before, even if these drivers had to do two medical tests a year, or even more types of medical tests organised by Bus Éireann, what would be wrong with that?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
Let me make sure this is captured correctly. The RSA did not say that we are derelict in duty. It produced a report that I believe states, given the risk, there is a concern. What we are trying to do is to be pragmatic here as well. One third of what we deliver through the scheme is delivered by vehicles under eight seats – small public service vehicles. The report of last year was based on the school bus drivers. Examined were all the issues attached to driving a school bus daily. The report does not trivialise anything in relation to this. Somebody might be fit today, and I fully regard them as such. What Bus Éireann is doing is not any different than from what Irish Rail or Dublin Bus is doing. We are all just trying to address a policy.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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There is no such rule in the USA or the UK.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
No. As far as I know, nobody in the UK is operating a scheme of this size, with ten and a half thousand routes. Our issue is that we are trying to manage it safely, and so far we are doing okay on that. Regarding the 3,000-odd smaller vehicles with escorts, including taxis, we are asking whether we could do the likes of what the Deputy is suggesting, namely introduce twice-yearly medicals and move the age from 70 to, say, 75. We are going to try to get research that would inform such a move such that we could dip our toe in the water; however, as long as the research on school buses that I have referred to stands – remember our buses go all the way up to 80-seater buses – it is very difficult for us to move, recognising the risk that has been called out by the professor.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I appreciate that but time is of the essence here and I have a number of other questions to ask.
With regard to the 270 bus route from Kenmare to Killarney, which is a great service, have the witnesses any notion in the world of developing proper bus stops with signs where the bus can pull in to set down or pick up people. We do not have that along the route. Some bus drivers will not stop and the bus goes whistling by. The bus is grand but it is no good if you cannot get on it or off it. It happened that a person, a young girl, was taken four miles down the road beyond where she wanted to get off. Her mother had to follow the bus down to the middle of the wood, where the driver found a place where he thought he could stop. Ninety-nine percent of drivers are fine but there will always be one who says he or she cannot stop in such a place because it is not safe. I want that rectified. Proper stops with signs where the buses can pull in must be developed.
I have another issue. There is a bus that goes from Tralee to Killarney every hour and another that goes in the other direction. Therefore, there is a bus landing in Farranfore every half hour. The buses park in a busy chemist’s yard. There are also the vehicles of those bringing people to the buses and those waiting to collect people. The man’s yard is full all day with people waiting. Down the road, 50 yd away, is the railway station. It has a shelter and everything else but, for some reason or other, the buses will not or cannot go into the railway yard, where everyone else can go. I ask that the traffic and bus stop be removed from the middle of Farranfore village. What is happening is holding up the traffic.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I want Mr. Kent to check it as it is a very serious matter.
Another issue is that for all the summer we were trying to get a bus run going for children in the Headford–Barraduff area. There were only nine children but ten are needed. Lo and behold, around the last week of August we found a tenth child, but we were then told we would have to wait until next year. One of the older children will probably be gone next year. We are left behind.
I thank the people operating the bus services in Kerry, including Tralee, and Limerick. They are doing their very best but I want these issues sorted out. That is what I am up here for, and that is what I am asking about this morning, along with my question on the 70-year-old rule. That rule is not fair; it is ageist. People are living longer and are healthier, and that has to be recognised.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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My question is on 101X service. In this regard, I am going to read an email. It is typical of the emails I receive very regularly. It states:
I am writing to you ... because I am at my wits end with Transport for Ireland and their complete failure to provide express bus services to the people of Balbriggan and Balrothery. The anxiety this is causing me is unbearable and I need your help.
This has been going on for 2 years now, ever since Transport for Ireland took over the bus route from Bus Eireann. The service has gone completely downhill, and they are refusing to do anything about it.
The problem is simple, they are running buses that are not suitable for the amount of people trying to get on them ... The bus size is completely inadequate for peak time. I am getting left behind 2-3 times a week trying to get to work ...
This morning [on 23 September] the 7am and 7:30am 101X express buses were ... completely full and couldn't pick anyone up .... I walked walked ... 3 km to ensure I would not be left behind today, but I was. Having two express buses going past me is the final straw .... I cannot take it anymore.
I have been constantly raising this ... with Transport for Ireland .... All they keep saying is they are "aware of the issue" .... They keep trying to blame the bus drivers when it's clearly not their fault, it's a capacity problem ...
Bus Éireann a few years ago actually put on a private minibus to solve this exact issue when they could see there was a problem. But now Transport for Ireland are refusing to do [so and they just ignore it] ...
[...]
The constant uncertainty of whether I will be able to catch a bus is causing me severe anxiety. This is affecting real people’s mental health, and Transport for Ireland don’t not seem to care. They have a solution right there, put bigger buses on or add extra services during peak time ...
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Why are there single-decker buses?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
It is definitely growing, and we are delighted with the volume. There has been a great enhancement of service through the NTA. In the peak time, definitely, we have five vehicles. We replaced lower-sized vehicles and went into double-decker coaches. We are still filling those. We are getting to a point where the vehicles we are operating at the peak-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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They are single-decker buses. In this case, I am referring to two single-decker buses. Balbriggan is a town of 25,000 people and it is the youngest large town in the country.
An awful lot of people are also living further up the line at Balrothery. A huge number of people are trying to commute to DCU and to work. We need double-decker buses. There are supposed to be double-decker buses on this service but it is not happening.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
We have been allocated the vehicles. There are definitely double-deckers. If we do not have them on a particular day, a breakdown or an incident could have impacted that, but vehicles are allocated to that route that have double-deck capacity. These are supported by the NTA. We know a lot of routes around the country, and there are a number of them, require higher capacity vehicles, as the Deputy said. We only have what we have, but there are more coming and on the way. In the interim, we have to try to continue feeding back, which we do with the NTA, where we have overloads and capacity issues. We do that to see whether we can do it.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How is that measured? How is it captured that those people could not get on at Balbriggan and Balrothery on successive days and successive buses?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How? Is it from the bus driver?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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We know that is not always happening.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There used to be a better system of capturing that.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
There is quite a lot of frequency still, even on that route. We try to encourage people, if we can, to do it to see if we can spread the load. That is what we are faced with. Increased frequency is the answer, but only subject to funding. We are in that space at the moment where are growing. I appreciate the Deputy's argument. I am not dismissing for one minute that we have a little bit of a capacity issue at peak-time on those services. That is something about which we are in discussions with the NTA, with a number of other routes in the country.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry. I know I sound frustrated, but I feel the stress when I get these emails. It is simply not good enough. There are supposed to be double-decker buses on this service and there are not. It is letting people down. One student had to spend €45 getting an Uber to DCU. It was her first week in college and she could not get on the bus. I got off the train at Dublin's Pearse Station today, where another woman stopped me to say she could not get on the 101 bus this morning. She then had to drive into Balbriggan town and pay €10 for her car to be parked there to get on the bus. This is her first week in a new job; she was doing induction and was late. That is the stress this service causes people. I appreciate it is a 24-hour service. It would be a good service, if we had additional capacity but we just need more. People, including myself, are at our wits' end with the capacity issues.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
As I said, the Deputy is not finding resistance. It is an enormous success and is growing. We brought it in and it is working. It is one of the routes we have to continue. The Deputy talked about the catchment area growing. I am delighted we are getting the usage. We just have to keep this review on the route. We operate it under contract. It is where it is. We took out the smaller vehicles and replaced them with five with double-deck capacity, but the Deputy is telling me it is still filling. That is the issue on which we have to probably just continue in dialogue with what everybody is saying. The Deputy is bringing it to our attention. That is what we will try to fix.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, I ask for the additional double-decker buses that will come to be prioritised for this route, please.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I will respond. We have heard about the 101 quite a bit. Mr. Kent is right. There are plenty of double-deck coaches on the 101. Mr. Ryan and I had reason to look at a number of them yesterday. We are aware of the capacity issues. If we have enough funding next year, and we do not know what funding we will have, we will find a way of adding capacity to the 101 to deal with that. I will put in the caveat that I genuinely do not know what our funding will be but if we get the funding-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Creegan and Mr. Kent. I appreciate it. I will come back in again, when we go back around.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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To other members, yes.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I will return to the issue of bus cancellations. For the NTA, where are we at with the migration of the AVL software?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
The new AVL system is still under development. It will be the end of next year before it gets rolled out fully to all the vehicles. There will be a pilot before the end of this year - I think it will be in Waterford - and it will then get rolled out, starting on Dublin Bus, around quarter 2 of next year. It will take a number of months to roll it out completely.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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We have a situation, and it is very welcome, that we will have 12 core bus corridors being built across Dublin city over the next seven years, which I think is the timeframe Mr. Creegan gave. We know now that there will be roadworks, and congestion as a result, over the time ahead.
One frustration I hear from commuters is that they would like to be able to plan their public transport journey in a much better way. I have visited the facility at Go-Ahead and had conversations with Mr. Hahn and his team from Dublin Bus. It is apparent to me that at 8 a.m. on any given weekday morning, the bus companies will have a fair idea of what sort of service they will be able to provide on that route. If a driver has called in sick or a machine is not available, they can say with, I would say 95% accuracy, whether they will be able to provide a good, moderate or poor service on that route. The NTA has a very good app that is used for departures and cancellations. My frustration relates to why that information, which is being collected by the bus companies, cannot be pushed into an app that tells commuters at the start of the morning there is not a great service on the W4 or C1 today so they should make alternative arrangements now. This is as opposed to the situation we have, where people are standing looking a real-time information dashboard and a bus just disappears. Granted, there were particular issues last year, which have been dealt with, but in an age where data is the new oil, why are we not collating that sort of stuff in a very proactive way and giving that preview at the start?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
A system like that, which is on the tubes in London, where you know because of planned works that are ongoing whether there will be a good service, poor service or whatever, is easy to do on a segregated rail system like the tube. It is very hard to do over a full day, as the bus system runs on a variety of streets from one end of the city to another.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry to interrupt Mr. Creegan. We had this conversation previously and I appreciate his point of view on it, but the NTA knows the percentage of drivers that will not be able to operate a particular route. There are a set number of duties for the W4, for example. If a driver calls in sick, a proportion of those vehicles will not be able to leave the depot, which will have a knock-on effect. I am struggling with why an app could not state why the W4 has a poor service, or it is expected that 25% of these routes will not happen today. I cannot get my head around why that would be a difficult thing to do because that information exists.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I think we do a different version of it, which is we cancel the individual services. The individual service appears for the next X number of services in the app. If the driver is not turning up and a replacement driver is not available, which, hopefully, there is in most cases, then the relevant operator can cancel that service in the app so it can be seen clearly that the 10.05 a.m. or 11.06 a.m. services are cancelled, if that is the case. That facility is available. The challenge there, which has been addressed, is making sure those cancellations are flagged up as soon as they are known. We had a position some time ago when cancellations were not always being promptly inputted into the system by the relevant controllers. In fairness, that has now been corrected.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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It sounds that it is an app design issue as opposed to an information issue and it is not being presented in a good way. Mr. Creegan is saying that I can see the 11.06 a.m. is cancelled. What I am asking is why an AI or data analysis system cannot be used to state we have looked at the proposed cancellations for the day ahead and we think there is an orange service as opposed to a green service on that route. Why can that not be done?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
What we do is probably better than that in reality. People will be interested in their particular service. The tube is a bit different in the sense there is a tube every two minutes. In the case of a bus network, that is rarely the case. Some services only run every hour or less so we think it is more useful, if there is a cancellation, to let people know exactly what service has-----
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, fair enough. If I am a commuter standing at 7.30 a.m. at the bus stop, I am not worried whether it is the 7.35 a.m., 7.37 a.m. or 7.42 a.m. that will take me to work. I am worried about how long I will be waiting for a bus. I am asking Mr. Ryan to tell me why, when the commuter gets out of bed in the morning, he or she cannot look to the app to see the C1 will not be as reliable as he or she thought, and will be able make an alternative arrangement. I do not think commuters will look at that in granular detail. Has a user interface analysis been done on the app that is used for commuters? What sort of feedback has been taken on board in terms of the information they find useful, as opposed to the information the NTA might find useful for managing the service? From a commuter point of view, what sort of analysis has been done on what people find useful? I am still getting complaints that the bus disappeared or, when people go into the app, they see that the 11.06 a.m. has disappeared. That is an issue in terms of trust. It is particularly an issue at weekends, which is when a lot of these systems are not up and running because an office is not staffed.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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You could ask for the data first thing in the morning. You could have a fair idea at 8 a.m. how many buses will not run that day.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
We do. Those cancellations are put into the app, so it can be seen route by route what services will run and what services will not, if that information has been provided by the operator.
In the case of frequent services, where there is a bus every two or three minutes, if there is a cancellation there it probably does not matter, if there will be another bus along in a couple of minutes' time.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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It does matter. If there is a bus missing, there is a capacity issue as there will be a number of people who get that bus. It matters if that bus does not arrive.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry to interrupt, but if the bus user is told as a bus user there will be poor service for the day, he or she is not likely to waste half an hour waiting for a bus because he or she is not likely to be able to get one. I would argue differently.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Say "moderate service" or that a full service is not being provided and there may be some gaps.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I accept that. I know I am over time and appreciate the Chair's indulgence. I ask Mr. Ryan to go back and revise the app in terms of usability for consumers that use the peak services. As Mr. Hann said, ultimately we want the bus service to be the economic backbone of the city, for workers. They need to see the arrivals so I encourage Mr. Ryan to go back and examine the app.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I will take my own slot now and then go back to Deputy Moynihan, who is taking Deputy Crowe's slot. We will then go back to members for a second round. I will cut the second round to four minutes each. Deputy O'Gorman will be first, then Senator Cosgrove, then Deputies Boland and Currie. If there is time for other members at that stage I think we will have a two or three minute slot for other members at the end, such as Deputy O'Rourke.
I have a quick question for each of the three bus companies, Dublin Bus, Go-Ahead Ireland and Bus Éireann. I want to speak about people with a disability, particularly those with a hidden disability. My first question to Mr. Hann is, what percentage of his drivers and front-line staff have undergone awareness training, in particular when it comes to people with a hidden disability? Will he give me just a quick answer?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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All of them. Mr. Kent?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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All drivers have received awareness training on hidden disabilities.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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The remainder of my questions are for Mr. Creegan of the NTA. I am thinking of people with a disability and in particular, those with a hidden disability. Is there a consistent accessibility policy across all operators or does it vary?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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My next question is a follow-on from that. To what extent is there oversight within the NTA? To what extent does to NTA provide oversight to ensure the operators who are here today meet those obligations, particularly as they apply to people with hidden disabilities?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
Our contracts require that all operators have disability awareness training. We conduct mystery shopper surveys and mystery passenger surveys. Disability groups use our services and report back on what they find in those surveys. In addition, audits are carried out by auditors we employ to see whether contractual requirements are being met by each operator in various areas of the contracts depending on the year, and that would be one of the areas they would look at.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Thinking a bit more deeply on the audits, how regular are these audits? How do they operate? Are they just random audits? Who carries out these?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Are these audits unannounced? Are they scheduled audits? Does the NTA have independent contractors or auditors that, for example, today would travel on a particular route, observe it and audit it?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Will Mr. Ryan explain that?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
The audit is different. The audit is to see if the contract terms are being met by the operator, so the operator provides evidence to the auditors that the contract is being met. The mystery passenger surveys would be where someone who is visually impaired or disabled would attempt to use a service. For example, a wheelchair user would ask for a ramp to be deployed and would see whether it is functioning or not and if the user could get on board the service. There is the experience the user has in interacting with the driver and onboard the service as well as their experience of disembarking. We have specific disabled user surveys as well as general mystery passenger surveys where we also randomly ask the driver to deploy the ramp on particular survey days and record whether or not the driver did deploy the ramp. That includes for people who may not look as they have any disabilities.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I will go back to representatives of Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann and Go-Ahead Ireland. I presume within their own internal structures there is an individual, or perhaps individuals, who perhaps themselves have a disability or are advocating on behalf of people. How are their voices heard within the structures of each of the organisations? Will Mr. Hann answer first?
Mr. Billy Hann:
We have a whole department for that. It is an assisted travel programme that looks after those with disabilities, whether they be visible or hidden ones for that matter. What they do is they reach out and make themselves available to groups of people with disabilities. They listen to them to hear what the issues and problems are, particularly when it comes to the new phase of BusConnects as there is an awful lot of work there. More importantly, they make themselves available to people with disabilities and will go to meet them at a location of their choice, sometimes at their house, apartment or where they live, and they will go through with them what it is like for them to travel on the bus. They will do that at the person's table and build up their confidence, all the way to bringing the person on a number of bus journeys until that person is confident to go on that bus journey themselves. The feedback is incredibly positive. People who have availed of that service have come back to me. At this stage there are well over 1,500 interventions per year such as this. People have come back to me and said it is not just about them now being able to take a bus service, it is about having the freedom to be able to visit the city do what they want. From our perspective, it is working really well and is an incredibly positive service.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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In terms of the organisations, how many complaints have there been in the year to date? In 2024, how many complaints were there from people with a disability who had a bad experience with their services?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
Similarly, we have a structure. We have a head of accessibility and he works with a travel independent team. The travel independent team is funded by the NTA. It is definitely one of the best things we ever put in. I launched the service in Waterford only a couple of weeks ago. That launch was attended by the families of all of those users. A lot of people either with hidden disabilities or with disabilities attended. There were a lot of people who have audio or visual disabilities, not only those who have wheelchair access needs. It is one of the best programmes and the feedback we get is incredible. A lot of people tell us it is life changing for their families in terms of how it helps people, so that is moving along.
On top of that, very structured meetings are now happening with the disability user group. These are all representative bodies who are bringing in their representatives. Those are things that have come back. There has been more investment. There is a lot going in on the infrastructure side and on capital side so there is an amount paid off across all of our stations every year and that is a capital programme. We heard the Deputy talk about stops.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Finally, Ms McKay.
Ms Dervla McKay:
We are not funded for programmes, similarly to what Mr. Kent and Mr. Hann have said, for individual users but we have a similar user accessibility group that meets quarterly and talks about either individual user issues or issues more generally. The most recent of those meetings was held yesterday.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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In my role as Chair, my appeal today to all of the organisations here is to make sure for people who have a disability - a hidden disability in particular - that their voice is heard and that when it comes to fleet modernisation, accessibility and infrastructure that they are at the very heart of all you do.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I want to start with skills and workforce development. My question is for the operators. What both Ms McKay and Mr. Hann have said in public is very welcome. I know Go-Ahead Ireland was encouraging female drivers recently, which is a very welcome initiative. I know Mr. Hann has spoken on world skills day about the importance of that. We have addressed the issues around recruitment. I would like to hear from both operators about a few things. I will go through them first. In terms of retention, what does that look like in their organisations at the moment? Does that present a challenge?
In fairness to the NTA, it has led on the issue of the public transport workforce we have and building it up for the future that it is not just the drivers, per se, but there needs to be a whole suite of skills around them.
Will the witnesses provide a description on any graduate programmes or active internships they have in their organisations? Both witnesses mentioned the apprenticeship programmes. I would like to hear more about the structure they have with training providers. That also applies to Bus Éireann in this case.
I also wish to think of the other jobs that we do not imagine or think of now. I have mentioned data analysts in my previous contribution. I also have fond memories of the school outreach programme when I was in school. The local bus driver, Tom, came in and he brought us all on the 78A. We all thought he was a fine fella and it was a great thing. Is that programme still in place? We will have a transport security force legislated for by the end of next year. It is important that the efforts of dealing with antisocial behaviour on public transport are also complemented by an outreach programme in those schools.
In summary, will the operators speak a little bit about retention in their organisations? How are they thinking of their pipelines of skills into the future, such as any graduate or internship programmes they have available, as well as any new roles that will be needed for the future, such as data analysts? I also seek a response on the school outreach programme. I will go to Mr. Hann first.
Mr. Billy Hann:
This is something that is quite dear to my heart in many ways. I have spoken quite publicly about it. From a retention point of view in Dublin Bus, we are actually very good. We are in or around 7% organisation wide, which is incredibly low for the industry we are in. There is a lot of longevity in the organisation. It is not too unusual to hear of people being 51 years in Dublin Bus, albeit such stories are becoming less frequent in recent times. The number is quite low.
From the point of view of the pipeline of skills, the Deputy heard our issue and concerns around the shortage of mechanics earlier and what we are doing in house to deal with that, which is pretty much boosting our apprenticeship programme. Other people in the organisation and I go out to promote skills, particularly at WorldSkills Ireland events and every other opportunity we get. I have participated in Dublin Bus’s front-line Friday initiative to work with apprentices to see what it is like, what they are doing and everything else. As an industry, we probably need to have a little bit more joined-up thinking with regard to our technological universities at a skills level and how they are funded, what equipment they have to train on and so forth. There is a conversation needed around that, which I am happy to be involved in, as I have said to other Ministers who are involved in this space.
With regard to graduate programmes, we have commenced a graduate programme in our procurement department. We are bringing in graduates and going through the various iterations. It has been very successful. We are now looking to see how we can roll that out to other parts of the organisation.
We facilitate internships, whether they be in our HR or finance department. We are looking to see how we can boost and use them to a larger extent.
The Deputy is absolutely right when it comes to new roles, particularly in and around technology and cybersecurity. We are finding it hard to get the skill set we need at the cost we can pay. We are looking at seeing how we can start to build that skills set up internally within the organisation, while using external resources to help us do that. The further education scheme within the organisation forms part of that. Quite a number of our employees have used the scheme to a great extent within the organisation. That has again been incredibly successful. We have a very progressive way of dealing with all those issues.
Ms Dervla McKay:
We have a number of programmes. Our retention figure is higher than that of Dublin Bus. That is, in more private circles, normal enough. It is circa 20%, which mostly relates to the driver population. It is a lot lower than that in the supervisory and management populations.
We are doing a number of things. Skills and data, as the Deputy said, are huge. We have a small team of MBA-qualified data analysts, which is excellent. As a public bus operator for 20 years, a key skills area for us going forward, which is not one that is called out too much, is scheduling and the ability to put together good schedules and rosters that drivers want to do that are family friendly and focused on safety. That will be hugely important. We have another two roles to join our business in that regard next year, which will be hugely helpful.
We are doing a lot around gender diversity. I thank the Deputy for his recognition of our women campaign. I am pleased to say that almost 50% of the Go-Ahead Ireland supervisory and management team are women, although we have a challenge in attracting women to the driver and mechanic skills sets.
We have one former graduate in our business, but we have not looked at that area in a while. It is something our parent company is working on. It has set a target that 50% of those graduates be women this year. We are hopeful of getting a graduate into our business as a result of that scheme. There are a number of things going on at the moment.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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In the context of retention and recruitment and the earlier conversation about plugging that gap, does the fact that Go-Ahead Ireland has a higher level of retention make it more difficult to plug that gap and cover drivers?
Ms Niamh Swords:
No. At the moment, we have a strong pipeline. We have a lot of growth coming up. Each week, we see at least ten drivers starting with us. Last Monday, we had 17 individuals start, which was great. What we find is that we hire a lot of people who have car licences and we train them up to get their bus licences. For some people, when the reality of doing the position hits, it does not work. That drives a little bit of the turnover. For us, internally, bringing that number down is hugely important.
Ms Jean O'Sullivan:
Our turnover is approximately 7%, which is not the same as retention. Of that 7%, an ageing workforce accounts for 3%. We have a lot of people retiring within the workforce. We also have a lot of people who are developing and getting promoted. We have a turnover within the business in terms of drivers. We have a retention issue with drivers more than any other grade within the organisation. When hiring new people to a new role where they will be driving as a career, sometimes they like it and sometimes they do not. We try to do a lot of that preparation at the beginning of the interview stage to make sure they are a good fit, will be a safe driver and that it is a role they will enjoy, taking into account shift patterns, etc.
We run an internship programme with TU Dublin, which is very successful. We have a number of graduate programmes, which are quite similar to what Mr. Hann has just described.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I wish to come back to the roll-out of BusConnects. This question is probably for the witnesses from the NTA. To clarify, the NTA is looking at a seven-year roll-out before all 12 of the spines are completed, which takes us to 2032. Did I pick that up correctly?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I will come back to that point. While I am not trying to downgrade the project - there are significant works for some of the BusConnects routes - it is not a new light rail or something. For example, it is not the electrification of the rail lines, but we are looking at a similar timeline. Why is there such a lengthy timeline? Is it funding or capacity dependent? Why is it taking seven years to get the whole thing done?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
It is a mega project. It falls into that category of being a mega project. It is major construction. Effectively, large sections of the street network across Dublin will be dug up in order to move the curb lines, put in cycle tracks and bus lanes and whatever else it might be. To do that construction work, traffic management measures will need to be put in place and there are going to be restrictions on particular corridors. For us, we cannot legitimately work on all 12 corridors at the one time. There would be no place for the necessary vehicles that need to move around the city. We have to stagger it in bundles of four at a time.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Have those sets of four bundles been made publicly available?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
When we carried out our environmental impact assessment reports and made our application to An Bord Pleanála, as it was then, we set out a sequence. Judicial reviews have caused us to change our sequencing, however. Of the 12 corridors, seven of them have judicial reviews ongoing. A total of five are clear. We are going to focus on four of the five we have, as opposed to the others. Our sequencing is evolving in accordance with when the schemes become available.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Are we saying the approach is to undertake the bundles in three-year periods?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
Each of the four schemes will take approximately two and a half years to construct. There are 12 corridors in total, with four being worked on at a time. If we got the sequencing perfectly correct and the funding was there, we would get it done in approximately seven and a half years.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Does the NTA have certainty on the first four corridors?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The NTA needs that certainty of funding on the first four corridors before it kickstarts the work.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Planning permission is in for DART+ West and DART+ South West. Is there a decision gate in the Department of public expenditure or something that needs to be passed before work begins on those? What is the next step in progressing DART?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
There are two decision gates. One is before it goes out to tender, called approval gate 2, and one is before a contract is signed, called approval gate 3. Approval gate 2 needs a ministerial decision to go to tender. Approval gate 3 needs a Government decision to sign the contract.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I use the train every week from Sligo to Dublin. It has been hailed as the longest route in the country. There has been ambiguity about this - when is the catering trolley returning to the Sligo-Dublin route?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
We have brought back the catering service on two lines so far - Dublin-Belfast and Dublin-Cork. Dublin-Belfast is co-funded by Translink Northern Irish Railways. As to restoring it on other lines, it is funding dependent. The funding is not available at the moment to restore it on other lines.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Why is not prioritised for Sligo as the longest route? We have sent petitions. There is nothing else we can do to show how much it is needed. It has become a public safety issue because people do not have access to water. It is indicative of the lack of infrastructure in the north west. People could be leaving the top of Donegal to get to treatment services in Dublin and because they are taking an early train, no shops are open. People might be on the train for over three and a half hours. I say this as a big advocate for public transport. Early morning trains such as the 5.40 a.m. train leaving Sligo are often delayed coming into Dublin. People could be sitting on the train for over three and a half hours. That is not acceptable.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I have been raising this for a long time. We get a vague response all the time. I am not trying to have a go but as someone who represents an area with people accessing hospital appointments regularly in Dublin because we do not have the facilities in Sligo University Hospital, we need a concrete answer on when there will be access to some kind of beverages or basic facilities on our train. I know the Dublin-Cork train is the busiest but we have the longest route, so we need to be prioritised in any return of catering services. We got information from an Irish Rail representative in August saying it was looking for a preferred supplier. I raised this question just last week in a meeting with Irish Rail and it rowed back on this. We need a concrete commitment that this will be returned as a matter of priority.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
The issue is funding. It will cost a few million euro to fund catering services across the network. Our choices become whether we put the catering service on there, whether we put additional capacity on the No. 101 or whether we put a Connecting Ireland route elsewhere. That is what we are faced with. We simply do not believe we have enough funding to reinstate catering services.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I appreciate that but when I looked at this briefing document, there was no reference to anything in the north west. We have heard all about Dublin. There is the Luas in Cork and there will be BusConnects in Galway but there is no commitment for Sligo.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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To be fair to the witnesses, today is about the urban-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I understand that. We have module in two weeks' time and the west will be well covered and indeed many issues that are important to me in Tipperary.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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No offence but there is a difference between Tipperary and Sligo. Sligo is seen as an urban centre. It functions as a city, so it comes under urban transport.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I do not have any issue with Sligo but the Senator said there was nothing rural in the report.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Three minutes is just not enough. I will give it a go. The national fares strategy aims to provide more consistent equitable fares structure across Ireland based on crow-flight distance travelled. As we discussed before, that is simply not accurate for zone 2 Dublin commuters. I will give an example. I received an email last night from someone who said she was writing again to complain about the train fare increase in Skerries and the new zone system. She lives outside Skerries. She got off the train in Rush and Lusk and got the No. 33 to Rush Road in Skerries. That journey cost €2 because it falls within the 90-minute fare. Skerries is not within the 90-minute zone, so if she had stayed on the train, she would have paid double that. She got to go on the train and the bus to the same destination for €2. If she had stayed on the train, it would have been €3.90. That makes no sense. It is not an equitable system. If one travels from Rush and Lusk to Skerries - 7 km - on a single ticket, it is €2.30. That is 30 cent more than it takes to go from Dublin Pearse to Rush and Lusk. It is not fair or equitable. It is not on a crow-flight distance travelled.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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One can get a train to Rush and Lusk and get the bus to Skerries for €2 but if one stays on the train-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I know why it is there. I am highlighting that it is inequitable. It does not reflect distance travelled.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
We had to take a view as to where the metropolitan rail network ended. The view we took was that it should be at the end of Maynooth, Rush and Lusk, and so on. In other words, 23 km from the city centre. That is why beyond that point it costs more to use the trail service. Since the bus network needs to-----
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is completely inequitable. I understand the rationale but it is inequitable that a train journey from Rush and Lusk to Skerries, which is 7 km, would cost a Leap fare of €2.30 yet one can travel all the way from Dublin Pearse to Rush and Lusk for €2. It makes no sense.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am enthused by the progress that has been made with BusConnects not only in Dublin but around the country. I support its roll-out to more of our towns. I also represent a constituency that probably has one of the largest amounts of house building in the country, Clonburris and Adamstown. When I look at the network redesign for Dublin and how BusConnects is being rolled out with great routes like the W4, the orbitals and local routes that have transformed towns like Lucan and Clondalkin, I worry that provision is not being made for sufficient capacity for the huge populations that will be in Adamstown, Clonburris, Citywest, Rathcoole, Saggart and all these places that are growing around the country. It feels like the buses are following the people after they are there as opposed to what we should be doing - I think the NTA is bought into this vision - which is creating the habit from the get-go, so that when someone moves into an area, bus transport is already available and operational. That is not the experience of new residents moving into Clonburris at the moment. It certainly was not the first experience of residents into Adamstown or of the residents who have moved there. I would like to hear the plans to deal with high-growth areas like Clonburris, Adamstown, Rathcoole, etc.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
We are planning in regard to bus for Clonburris. We are watching development in Clonburris in particular. All around outer Dublin, we are updating the 2020 BusConnects network redesign plans where we need to get ready for the developments we are watching take place in outer Dublin. It is on our radar. We are well aware of it. Only last week, I got a presentation from the service planning team in the NTA around what we might do in Clonburris. The work is not finished yet but it is certainly on our radar. We will look at other outer areas in Dublin later this year and next year.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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When will the NTA have a clear view?
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with that. I would also say the public transport system is creaking in Lucan and Clondalkin at the moment. The NTA is not necessarily tacking on new demand but is addressing a backlog that should have been addressed a number of years ago. I am very pleased by the DART+ West programme, which will be a welcome innovation. However, I would encourage the NTA to overcommunicate that there is planning being done for Clonburris. I am encouraged to hear that there is planning for new routes in Clonburris and possibly Adamstown. However, I am also thinking of areas like Rathcoole and Saggart, which have a half-hourly bus service in the mornings for commuters. Traffic gridlock is a very real thing and there is no viable option in many people's eyes because the buses get stuck in the congestion. There is a totally different argument that we need to have around congestion more generally but also in terms of route planning. We need to overcommunicate that new routes are coming on stream. The instant gut reaction when development happens is to ask where the transport is to back it up. That needs to go in. I look forward to seeing those plans.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My questions are for the NTA. The witnesses are hearing today about areas where BusConnects routes have not been introduced and that are falling behind in terms of capacity. One of those areas is Hollywoodrath. It is an area of major housing growth but we have not seen the provision of enough investment in bus services. The NTA has worked with me on this since I was elected. The 40E bus service changes have been implemented, improving the connection between Broombridge and Hollywoodrath. The 40D service, which we previously spoke about, is to be extended to Hollywoodrath. The commitment was made that it would be in November and, just weeks later, my office was advised that it has now been pushed out until March. I find it hard to understand how those decisions can be made so quickly. I do not feel the area and the issue are being prioritised in the way they should be. I have demonstrated the level of funding discrepancies and I have shown the result with regard to usage levels. I need the NTA to understand that areas like Hollywoodrath and Clonburris, and the areas in other constituencies, have to be prioritised. They cannot fall behind because they are not part of the BusConnects route changes.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
We are absolutely in agreement on that. We are all aware of the B spine. The Blanchardstown service changes are happening later than we had hoped. In the interim, we are going to address Hollywoodrath in particular. I will check why there has been a delay to March. I am not sure why that is, although it may be driver related. It is certainly top of our list of places to go in outer Dublin. We know we need to do something before the B spine turns up.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The tannoy in Connolly Station is very poor, communications around platform changes cannot be heard and the app is not always integrated with the signs in the station. The NTA has allocated funding to Iarnród Éireann. The response I have is that it is now at the early stage of looking at option analysis for alternative approaches for systems specifications and architecture. Can we please just improve the tannoy in the interim instead of waiting for what will probably be a long process regarding the change that is needed for the commuter experience?
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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My questions are for the NTA but I will make one comment to Mr. Kent. He said the professor has drawn up the report regarding the over-70s. I do not want an answer now as it will eat up all my time. Surely, however, a medically qualified person is who we should look to to get a report from with regard to drivers aged over 70, not a professor, who would not be a medically qualified person. I will have to leave it at that. It was an interesting conversation on what is a very important issue.
I have some questions for the NTA and I am conscious that my time is tight. If the witnesses cannot answer me now, they might send the answers to me. Councillor Linda de Courcy tells me that in Rathcoole, hundreds of new houses have been built and the population has risen phenomenally recently. There is a 69 bus route but it only has one bus per hour. With the increase in population in Rathcoole and Saggart, Councillor de Courcy and the people there are convinced that more frequent bus services are needed. The NTA might come back to me on that, and Dublin Bus or Go-Ahead could also answer. Will more frequent services be provided?
With regard to ghost buses, the service is not reliable. Why does the NTA keep renewing the contract for a company that is not reliable?
The Luas is probably not on the agenda today but I will raise it because the NTA covers this project. The emerging preferred route is from Ballincollig to Mahon, which is fantastic. However, what plans does the NTA have for the 120 km west of Cork city that has no Luas and no rail? There is nothing - not even a sign for rail.
With regard to rural transport, there is no doubt that it is a game-changer. It is brilliant. It has been rolled out to perfection in so many ways. I accept that when we cover one route, there is always another route that was not covered. That is something we can negotiate.
I live on the Mizen Peninsula. Quite a lot of people come to Mizen Head. The bus goes in by one route and out by the same route. People have been saying to me that there would be no extra kilometres in taking it in by one route and out by another route. We put forward the same thing in Castletownshend and it is the same with the Mizen route. It is a common-sense thing to do as it would pick up a lot more people. We have to remember that many people in rural areas do not have transport. If we did this, they could come to the bottom of the road and get the bus. We are not trying to take it off-route or make crazy journeys. That cannot happen, as we know. The Mizen route, the Castletownbere to Kilcrohane route and the Castletownshend route are fantastic routes. However, there is still a very open area in parts of west Cork, in places like Clonakilty, Ballinacarriga, Dunmanway, Drimoleague and Caheragh. Some of those areas do not see a bus at any time of the day, from start to finish. I would appreciate it if the NTA could write back to me with the answer.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I want to raise with the NTA the issue of public bus services to and from Ratoath via Ashbourne. There has been a very significant increase in population. There are high-frequency services but also a lot of cancellations, replacement buses and single-deckers when it should be double-deckers. There is a lot of congestion in the city so time is being made up by bypassing Ashbourne on some routes. The experience of service users is a very frustrating one. I should acknowledge that there has been some improvement in connection to the M3 Parkway, and I welcome those improvements.
I want to make the case again for more direct routes from Ratoath and Ashbourne to the city, with a greater mix of direct and indirect routes. That would be advantageous and would sort out a lot of the problems. There is definitely population demand and the geography lends itself to it. People can go directly from Ratoath via the Nine Milestone roundabout but there are only a very small number of direct services. I would make the case to the NTA to review this and to work towards having more direct routes from Ratoath and Ashbourne to and from Dublin, in particular given the service delivery needs and the increase in population.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We can certainly take a look at it. Even if more direct routes are added, we would still have to carry the people from the intermediate stops, so we would end up adding more services, and there is a cost attached to something like that. All I can say here is that we will look at it at the time. I understand the point. We have it all over the city. Everybody would prefer a direct route from their home, effectively.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I would make the case that because of congestion, we are living with Ashbourne being bypassed by some services. I am grateful that the NTA will consider reviewing it. I would ask that it look at the real-life scenarios that are playing out on a daily basis. While I understand the counterarguments, I believe this will work in everybody's interest.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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When will the decision from the Department of Transport about funding for the projects and the national development plan be? Mr. Creegan said before the end of the year. I presume Navan rail is linked to that.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak. I might come back in two weeks and talk about the Ballybrophy line which, as Leo Varadkar said in his recent book, I had to save many years ago, and he is telling the truth.
My hobby horse is the Leap Card. I launched this ten years ago, and I think Mr. Creegan was around then, and maybe one or two others. I think what I have here is one of the first cards, if not 0001. It is very worn, as the witnesses can see. In fairness to the NTA, I have asked parliamentary questions about why this even still exists, why it is not on people's phones, in their wallet, like everything else. The reply I have got has basically said it has been looked at and that it is not financially viable. I am from a technology background. I used to be an IT manager. I know Indra Sistemas has been appointed to change all the machines across the network, starting in the greater Dublin area and working out, which is the norm for contactless and all of that. Where in the timeline do we fit in getting rid of this? We do not have to get rid of it, but currently have to fumble for the card when it should be on our phone which we should be able to use. What is the timeline for doing that and why have we not done it? What was so excessive about the costs? Was it the process through the phone companies or what was it? I have asked this question numerous times and am still not fully au fait with why this has not been done yet, because we were so advanced earlier on.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
Leap is getting to be an ancient system now. It is probably 20-year-old technology at this stage. We looked at whether we should put Leap on the mobile phone. From memory, there were three reasons why we did not do it. One is that we have the new what we call next-generation ticketing coming within two years. The second is that my recollection is that one of the operating systems-----
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We would not be able to get it to work on Apple phones without a lot of investment. The third reason was the cost of even doing it on the Android phone. For those reasons, we said we would keep going with what we call next-generation ticketing and get that installed and operational, but it is a big project. We have to change all the validators at every rail station-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Once that is in the place, what is the timeline to have this work through the phone?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I could give it to a museum.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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We are caught for time and I want to let the last member in to finish on this.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Mr. Ryan was going to say something.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Oyster card is still knocking around.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I was interacting with Mr. Kent earlier when our time ran out. I ask Mr. Kent to reply to me about the run with the nine children, which then had ten children. I want to elaborate a bit about Farranfore. I am incensed about that. There is a railway yard which facilitates people getting on the train for Tralee, Killarney, Dublin or whatever. The buses can go in there. There is a shelter for people and a parking area for people bringing others to the bus. I cannot see why that is not operating. Having people standing out in the rain, all day, every day, is totally and absolutely wrong, which is what is happening there.
We are all human beings and people make errors, whether drivers or contractors, but the penalty or sanction for making any kind of a mistake with Bus Éireann is that the driver cannot drive anymore for Bus Éireann for as long as he lives, and the contractor cannot operate anymore for Bus Éireann. This relates to bringing schoolchildren. We have operated the service since 1956, with my father doing so before me and me since 1974 or 1975, and we take it seriously, but you can make a mistake. I know of a driver who went home one evening after delivering all his children, and when he looked out the window, there was a child inside in the bus. He took the child home. The parents were happy. She had fallen asleep. The question is whether the bus driver is supposed to get up off his seat, leave the controls unattended and go back and check each child. He took the child home immediately. Nothing happened to the child. The parents were happy to have their child back. Some other good-for-nothing people who should be minding their own business reported him to Bus Éireann, and he can never again drive a bus for Bus Éireann. If you commit manslaughter, you get out after six or seven years. If you rob the bank in Kenmare, you will get so many years but not life. This is very wrong. I know of another bus operator who made a slight mistake. Will Mr. Kent reply about who made that decision or those rules? Where are they emanating from, because they seem very strict and unfair?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
It all falls under child safeguarding. While the Deputy might make the representation on behalf of the driver, sometimes, I may also have heard the representation of the parent. There is significant concern there. I will respond to the Deputy after the meeting on the other issues he raised. Deputy Collins mentioned the professor. He is the director of the national office for traffic medicine. His credentials are there. That is just to put that on the record.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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We have Leaders' Questions right now. To conclude the meeting, on my behalf and that of the members, I thank all our witnesses for really good engagement today. Much was discussed, including reliability, affordability, frequency and big infrastructural projects. I know some of the witnesses will possibly be back here on 15 October. I do not know if Mr. Creegan will be here. Maybe Conor O'Donovan will be. I know Bus Éireann will be back. I thank our teams from Go-Ahead and Dublin Bus. I think there is a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges. It was a worthwhile meeting.