Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 15 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport
Rural Bus Transport: Discussion
2:00 am
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Good morning all, and welcome. The purpose of today's meeting of the joint committee is to discuss rural bus transport, which, we all agree, is a vital element of national connectivity, economic development and social inclusion. Reliable, affordable and frequent public transport is not a luxury in rural Ireland; it is a lifeline for work, education, health and community life.
On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to welcome, from the National Transport Authority, Mr. Hugh Creegan, interim chief executive, Mr. Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services, and Mr. Conor O'Donovan, senior transport planner; from Bus Éireann, Mr. Stephen Kent, chief executive officer, Ms Miriam Flynn, chief schools officer, and Mr. Allen Parker, chief customer officer; and from the Coach Tourism and Transport Council, Mr. David Conway, chairperson, Mr. Brendan Crowley, vice chairperson, and Mr. J.J. Kavanagh, executive committee member.
Before we begin, I will read some notes on privilege. 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.
Finally, I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they 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 members participating via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm that they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.
I will call on the witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order: the NTA, followed by Bus Éireann and thereafter the Coach Tourism and Transport Council. I invite Mr. Creegan to make the opening statement on behalf of the NTA.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the invitation to appear before the committee today. I understand the committee wishes to discuss rural bus 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, and Conor O'Donovan, senior transport planner.
As I informed the committee at a previous meeting, public transport use continues to grow at exceptional levels. Overall, passenger numbers on State-provided bus and rail services in 2024 were 32 million higher compared with 2023, an increase of 10.6%. That increase included rural transport, where the total number of passenger journeys on all TFI Local Link services in 2024 was 5.8 million, a 33% increase on the corresponding 2023 figure.
As the committee will be aware, the NTA developed and is implementing the Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan, the key objective of which is to increase transport connectivity for people living in rural Ireland. During 2024, a total of 45 new or enhanced bus routes were introduced under the Connecting Ireland programme. The implementation of further new and improved services is continuing this year.
In relation to town services, substantial progress has been achieved over the last few years. Town bus services have been introduced in Kilkenny, Carlow, Clonmel and Portlaoise, with services in Mullingar and Ennis to commence in the early months of next year, and services in Letterkenny planned to follow subsequently. A fully electrified and enhanced bus service is now in place in Athlone and bus network enlargements and enhancements have been implemented in Sligo, Navan, Dundalk and Drogheda.
The NTA recently launched a smart demand responsive transport service in three locations under the brand of TFI Anseo. The first pilot was launched in Achill in July, followed by Killarney in August. On Monday last, the service was implemented in the Rheobogue, Mill Road and Park area of Limerick city. Unlike traditional bus services, TFI Anseo does not follow a fixed route. Instead, it travels wherever passengers need to go within the service area, developing a bespoke route in each case depending on the journey requests received by the app. We are running these pilots for one year to glean information on the service usefulness, cost and any issues arising in operation. Initial feedback so far has been very positive.
This concludes my opening remarks. I welcome any questions that members may have.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Creegan. I invite Mr. Kent to make his opening statement on behalf of Bus Éireann.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I thank the Cathaoirleach, Deputies and Senators for inviting us here today. I am joined by Miriam Flynn, our chief schools officer, and Allen Parker, who is our chief customer officer.
As I provided a broad update on the performance of the company at this committee two weeks ago, I will focus my opening remarks today exclusively on our rural services. Since our origins as the Irish Omnibus Company in 1926, Bus Éireann has provided connectivity to rural communities throughout Ireland. That same commitment drives us today. Bus Éireann is expecting to deliver over 115 million passenger journeys this year, expanding on our record-breaking achievement in 2024.
We operate all our public service obligation, PSO, routes in rural Ireland under contract to the NTA. For over 57 years, we have also operated the school transport scheme on behalf of the Department of Education.
We also support the Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan as part of the Government's Our Rural Future policy.
We have introduced approximately two dozen new or significantly enhanced services since the plan's inception on behalf of the NTA.
We understand the value that these services bring to the communities we serve. We make a significant contribution to rural economies, both directly through those we employ and indirectly through our supply chain. We estimate that these services help to sustain well over 11,000 jobs across Ireland and that is before we count the passenger journeys delivered enabling people access to their livelihoods. Our delivery of the school transport scheme, on behalf of the Department of Education and Youth, is a prime example of the value of the rural services delivered. It bears repeating that ours is the largest scheme in Europe, with over 58 million journeys per year serving 173,000 school children each day across 10,600 routes and 8,300 vehicles.
Transport accounts for about one fifth of national emissions, while private cars are responsible for one half. By supporting modal shift from car to more sustainable public transport, we have a real opportunity to reduce emissions and protect the country's finances from avoidable fines in the future. In order to do so, we must accelerate investment in our decarbonisation efforts. The electrification of our urban services shows our ability and drive to deliver sustainable public transport solutions. Our rural heavy coach fleet, however, requires a different solution than electrification in the short term before battery technology for heavier vehicles develops. Therefore, it is crucial to incentivise the use of alternative fuels, such as HVO and green hydrogen, both for Bus Éireann and our colleagues in the private operator sector, along with the introduction of EV infrastructure across Ireland.
We currently operate approximately 150 rural routes under a direct awards contract, out of a total of 216 routes nationwide. We also operate bus stations nationally that provide public services and connectivity, employing about 3,300 people. Since 2019, funded by the NTA, we have introduced 103 low-floor single-deck coaches across the country into our services, all assigned to rural routes to support the Connecting Ireland plan. Working with the NTA and local authorities, we continue to improve accessibility, but further investment and expansion is crucial to support the growing demand on our services. We welcome the further investment from the Government allocated for bus stops in rural locations, improving safety for our customers and enabling greater accessibility for all using our rural services. We are also encouraged by the Government's introduction of reduced speeds on local roads, further facilitating safer journeys. The introduction of reduced fares for young adults, free fares for children under the age of nine and the roll-out of a national strategy to simplify bus fares are helping boost passenger journeys and encourage modal shift.
Local Link services are integral to extending access to more remote areas. These services integrate with our core routes to ensure broader access, but to fully support low-floor buses, the right infrastructure, especially at bus stations, is also essential.
The enhancements in services would not be possible without the support of all our stakeholders, especially our hard-working staff. I am proud of their dedication and commitment to delivering a valued public service. Reflecting our strong connections to communities through the country, Bus Éireann is always supporting local sporting, cultural and creative activity, whether it is Comhaltas, the annual fleadh or the community games. Most recently, we got involved with the Stripe Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. We also appreciate our customers throughout rural Ireland. We recognise that many of them have no other means of transport and rely on these services for so many aspects of their lives. We have achieved a lot for our rural communities in recent years and I know that Bus Éireann is ready to drive forward further improvements and the expansion of public transport services to rural communities.
Mr. David Conway:
On behalf of the members of the Coach Tourism and Transport Council of Ireland, CTTC, I thank the Chair, Deputy Murphy, and the committee for inviting us to present here today and for providing us with an opportunity to discuss the very serious issues affecting commercial bus operators and their delivery of rural transport services in Ireland.
By way of introduction, my name is David Conway of FlightLink Limited. l am the Chairperson of the Coach Tourism and Transport Council of Ireland and I am joined by the vice-chairperson of the CTTC, Mr. Brendan Crowley of Wexford Bus, and executive committee member J.J. Kavanagh of JJ Kavanagh and Sons. I will now pass over to the vice-chair to deliver our opening statement.
Mr. Brendan Crowley:
The Coach Tourism and Transport Council of Ireland is the country's largest representative body for commercial bus operators. We are a proactive organisation focused on delivering efficient and sustainable transport connectivity in Ireland. Although the public transport sector plays a vital role in Irish society, it is supported every day by our members in the private sector. In essence, we help to keep Ireland connected.
As a sector, we support more than 11,000 jobs across every constituency and region in Ireland and our activities have sustained businesses across all the areas where our scheduled routes operate, as well as carrying out school transport services. The commercial bus and coach industry has approximately 1,800 licensed operators in Ireland. We support businesses across rural Ireland that would otherwise have limited employment opportunities, while the entire sector generates more than €620 million for the economy annually. The commercial bus industry undertakes 75 million passenger journeys every year across scheduled services, school transport and coach tourism. We are here today to discuss rural transport and essential connectivity for these communities, including both the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.
Many of our members have for years been engaged in the delivery of rural public transport on a commercial basis. In the vast majority of cases, these services were developed where there was little or no alternative, thus filling a vital role in terms of community connectivity and social cohesion. Today, we continue to provide and support, both directly and indirectly, valuable employment across our country. All of these services have been developed without financial support from the State.
In recent years, many of these services have come under pressure due to the Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan. As the Connecting Ireland network, largely made up of Local Link services, continues to develop, there is far greater potential for indirect competition for passengers where services overlap or operate in very close proximity to one another. The commercial realities are that the lower fares and often higher frequency of the Government-funded services cannot be matched by licensed operators and, therefore, the future of many of these services is in severe doubt. I want to make it clear that we are fully supportive of the Connecting Ireland plan. In fact, many of those services are provided by our members through NTA contracts, thus providing reliable revenue streams that have allowed significant investment in a modern bus fleet across the country. However, while this is all positive, we are concerned that there is an urgent need for the State to devise a fair and transparent process to manage the transition of services that are destabilised or no longer financially viable from licensed services to become part of the publicly supported network.
Successive budgets have contained measures to reduce the cost of fares on public transport. We very much welcome any measures designed to encourage people to use bus services. Our members, who provide regular, reliable services on hundreds of licensed routes, have for many years participated in the Department of Social Protection free travel scheme. We have also participated in the young adult fare scheme since it was launched in 2022. For reasons unknown to us, we have been excluded from the under-nines free travel initiative. Considering that our members provide many rural services as well as urban services in towns and cities across the country, we believe that the exclusion of commercial services from this scheme unfairly disadvantages thousands of families and children as the cost of living problems continue. Furthermore, it undermines the efforts to change consumer behaviours and deter the use of private vehicles, something that would have obvious positive impacts on driving Ireland’s emissions down. We estimate the cost of including the private commercial network at less than €1 million per annum from a Department of Transport budget that was €3.9 billion in 2025. It is also important to note that the benefit of inclusion accrues to the end user - the hard-pressed passengers and parents - and not the companies. The technology to enable inclusion is already in place through the Leap card operating system and our members are ready and willing to work with the NTA team to implement these changes should the Minister for Transport amend the policy in this regard.
We welcome the allocation of €83 million for the decarbonisation of commercial bus fleets contained in budget 2026. We look forward to hearing in greater detail about how this funding will be distributed, and whether moneys will be ring-fenced to encourage the transition for bus operators. However, given what we know about the high costs of transition, multiples of this allocation will be required in the coming years. To make investments in electric vehicles more viable, we must see a situation where the duration of contracts, such as Local Link contracts, is extended beyond the current four years.
In our pre-budget submission, we proposed that consideration be given to using HVO as a transitional fuel that would reduce life-cycle carbon emissions by over 90%. This could have been made possible through a diesel to HVO equalisation measure. Unfortunately, our wish was not granted on this occasion and instead we have been hit by an increase in carbon tax to our diesel costs.
The CTTC members have a long history of developing and delivering reliable rural public transport services.
Now, at a time of heightened public investment, customer expectations and demand for services, we are committed to working with all stakeholders to deliver a network that could be a source of national pride. All we ask in return is that we be considered and treated as equal partners and that the contribution of our members and challenges faced by our operators should be acknowledged. We would like more proactive engagement with the Minister and the Department of Transport to overcome these challenges on a fair basis. In essence, we want to be a partner with the Government and the Oireachtas on this important issue.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for their opening statements. We are looking forward to a constructive discussion. Today, we want to explore progress, the challenges in expanding rural bus connectivity and the need to ensure value for money, maintain fair competition and address the growing demand for sustainable transport options in rural areas. Of course, we also want to examine experiences on the ground regarding service reliability, driver shortages, funding pressures and accessibility. These are all areas that we would like to explore today.
The first member to contribute will be Senator Cosgrove, who has seven minutes, and she is to be followed by Senators Duffy and Collins. Members with questions should be clear about which witnesses they want to answer.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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The witnesses are very welcome back. They must be sick of seeing us at this stage. I want to ask about Local Link, so I guess it concerns the NTA. The issue of extending and connecting Local Link routes is raised with us all the time. I do not want to refer to specific routes. Mr. Creegan stated there has been a 33% increase in the number of people using the service, which is fantastic. I have written to the Department of Transport asking whose responsibility it is to create a new route or connect routes. Is it the local authorities, the NTA or the Department? There seems to be confusion. I just want clarity. I got a letter back about trying to get a bus stop or a new route extended. It said these are matters for the NTA in conjunction with the local authority sector and relevant public transport companies. I guess it would be cheaper to connect existing routes rather than set up a new route. What are the criteria? We have people coming to us all the time about this and we have conducted door-to-door petitions, but we do not know what to do or the right approach. Is it to do with the local authorities, the NTA or the Department of Transport?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
To be clear, it is the NTA that plans the Local Link services, in consultation with other parties. If the funding is available and we think the service is appropriate, it then becomes the NTA’s responsibility to contract the service in some way and get it delivered. We do not think we are passing the buck anywhere else; we are saying we are the ones responsible for planning the transport service.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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What are the criteria to get a connecting link? Local people on the ground know better than anyone else. Is it a matter of getting a connecting route or creating a new link? What are the criteria for getting a new route?
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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How do we do it, though, as representatives of local areas where there is a huge demand? I refer to the likes of the 563 and 981 services. People come to us to say they have no service and that if they had one, they would use it. How do we move it forward? I just do not know what to do as a representative.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
The way to move it forward is simply to contact us with the proposal. We will review it, and if we think it is workable within the parameters we have, we will revert to the Senator and say so. On the other hand, if we believe the cost of the service versus expected patronage would not be justified, or if we believed the service would be duplicated by a commercial operator, or for a variety of other reasons, we may not be able to proceed with it. However, every single request is considered. We have to implement transport on a planned basis. We do try to review each area and identify what changes may be required. It is not the case that we can just put in a service-----
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Much of this is grassroots led or a matter of communities coming together. Public meetings are held about services. Should those concerned put together a business plan? Is there any checklist or form that would make it easier for communities to show evidence, such as the population in the area, that a bus is needed?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We have a plan published on our website, the Connecting Ireland plan. We are not against making tweaks to it or changing it. Fundamentally, the plan is the one that has been developed to address rural transport needs across Ireland. If there is a particular case where the Senator believes we have got something wrong or something should be changed, it does not require a business case to be developed. What it requires is somebody setting out what the proposal is and what level of support and usage there might be. Of course, there will be plenty of support but it is more a question of the likely usage. We cannot put in a service for just one person who makes just one journey. If we get this kind of information, we can then respond. We will say we have looked at the proposal and believe either that the Connecting Ireland plan is right and should not be amended or that we have identified something we can do and that we will come back to those concerned about it. The caveat is that while we might like to do something, we will not be able to guarantee doing it until we are sure we have the funding available.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Should I go back to groups and say it is a case of lobbying?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
For us it is not lobbying; it is about somebody genuinely making a proposal and setting out the reasons for it, and then allowing us to digest and assess the proposal and come back with an informed answer stating it is a good idea and why, or that we do not believe it is a good idea and we are sorry we cannot proceed with it.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Would it be helpful to have local transport representatives meeting people on the ground? I am aware that someone from TFI met a group recently in Sligo about a connecting route on the Leitrim–Sligo border. The more people involved, the better. Is it about the evidence base, accounting for the population of the area, projected population growth and so on?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
It has to be evidence-based; it cannot be just aspiration. Ultimately, we have to run these services on a value-for-money basis. There has to be a level of usage. A new service cannot discommode existing passengers. We get many requests to divert by 2 km or 3 km pretty straightforward routes that have much usage. We know that if we did so, we might gain a few passengers in the area of the new route, but we would lose many on the main line because the journey would become much longer. Therefore, it is about facts on what people are looking for, why they think it is needed and some idea of the expected level of usage.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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So, it is up to us, working with communities, to bring the information forward to the NTA.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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That is perfect.
Can I ask about Local Link? A few people have contacted me to say they used to be able to flag down their bus. Has the policy on this changed?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
There are approved bus stops on every Local Link route. Those stops have to be approved by the local authority in which the service operates. It is not our responsibility to approve them from a safety point of view. Demand-responsive transport, particularly smart demand-responsive transport, is different. The services do not operate on fixed routes. The buses can be booked and the drivers can vary the routes and stop at any locations they consider safe. It is only with smart demand-responsive services that this can happen. For a fixed-route, scheduled service, every stop must be approved by the local authority from a safety point of view.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests from the NTA, Bus Éireann and the Coach Tourism and Transport Council of Ireland.
I represent County Mayo, where we have had some very positive examples of TFI Local Link. In this regard, Mr. Creegan mentioned in the opening statement the Anseo service on Achill Island. There are additional services connecting Castlebar to Achill and also Belmullet, and these have been very positive. I thank the NTA and Local Link, including Sarah Togher and the team on the ground in Mayo, who are doing excellent work.
I have one observation. It may be something the NTA or Bus Éireann can help with. I have previously advocated for the connectivity of Knock Airport with north Mayo. Knock Airport is well connected with bus links to Castlebar and Westport. Six routes have return journeys daily. However, Knock Airport to Foxford, Ballina and north Mayo is served with only one connection outbound and two from Ballina to Knock Airport. It is underserved. Demand in Knock Airport is growing all of the time and it would be very welcome if we could find a way between the NTA and Bus Éireann to try to connect Knock Airport with north Mayo and west Sligo. It is something I have raised previously, although not at this committee. I would welcome some consideration of that.
My second point is for Bus Éireann and relates to bus stops and the lack of bus stops in places in Mayo and the deterioration of some. I have had constituents raise it with me in places like Charlestown where the timetables on the bus stops have totally deteriorated. I have raised it with Bus Éireann and the local council, but action would be welcome on it.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
On connectivity to Knock Airport, I have just checked with Mr. O’Donovan, and we are reviewing services in Mayo. That will be considered as part of the review. We are happy to come back to the Senator in a period of time, but I am not sure how long, to tell him the outcome. That area is under review, and we will factor this in.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
We have a national investment programme under way, which is funded by the NTA. We have a team out there working through a programme. I will be happy to come back to the Senator to tell him about Charlestown. It is obviously rostered at some point so we can maybe find out a little more about that.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Parker and Mr. Kent. I also thank Mr. Creegan. I welcome that news. It is definitely a blackspot in terms of connectivity. It is regularly raised with me. It would change commuter habits if the airport were connected. I would welcome that.
Mr. David Conway:
I also have a comment. I take on board what the Senator says about Knock Airport and north Mayo. In conjunction with the NTA we have a number of members that operate in the Mayo region and are active in providing scheduled services. I will relay that to those members, and if there is potential for a commercial opportunity, they will be delighted to look at it and go through the necessary process with the NTA to obtain a licence for it.
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I welcome everyone back. It is great to have them here. Rural transport is top of my agenda as I live in County Limerick, so I will paint a picture. I think this relates first to the NTA. Living in the west of County Limerick we have Bus Éireann, which is bus 321. There is the Expressway bus 13, and the Dublin bus, which I think is bus 300. If you are a student or are working in Limerick city and live in Abbeyfeale, you are looking at getting the 7.25 a.m. or 7.30 a.m. bus. It comes from Killarney, so by the time it hits Abbeyfeale, if it is not already full and you are left standing at the side of the road until 9 a.m. for the next one, you might get some people on, but it will definitely be full by the time it hits Newcastle West. All of these students and workers are standing there with no option. There is no bus coming for at least another hour. I think with the 7.30 bus the next one is at 9 o'clock. Again, in the evening it is the same thing. Leaving Limerick city and coming out, it is every two hours. The Dublin bus is every hour, but it will not stop at certain stops. It will stop in Abbeyfeale and Newcastle West. It will not go into Rathkeale because it has to come off the N21. It also will not stop in Croagh, which is on the N21. It does not pull in off the road anywhere. It will stop in Adare. If you live anywhere between Adare and Newcastle West, the bus is no good to you because there is no stop and you will not be able to get on it anywhere.
What is the funding per capita in the greater Dublin region compared with rural regions? Is there a massive disparity? I see it listening to people going on about metro, Luas, DART and buses, and you have people living in Limerick county who cannot even get to college. Is there a big difference between the funding model for Dublin and that for rural Ireland?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
I will start, but I will need assistance on some of those. I am not sure what funding per capita is, but the reality is that the larger conurbations obviously need much more investment to deal with the population there. At the same time, just as we have programmes in place on the bus side, such as BusConnects, for the urban areas, we have a matching programme, Connecting Ireland, for all the rural areas. Our intention is to try to provide a good level of service everywhere, irrespective of where you are. Only one of the three bus routes mentioned by the Senator is a State-operated subsidised service, which is the 321. The others are commercially provided. Mr. Kent and others will have to answer for those. The stops mentioned by the Senator are on route 13. Again, that is the commercial service so I will have to defer on that one too.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
We run the services based on commercial demand and that is it. It is there as a scheduled service. If there were more demand, we would probably seek to extend our licence. We are licensed at certain stops. We go through that in the same way as the commercial operators. Typically, if there is additional frequency demand, we will apply. If there is not, we do not do it. I am not discounting the Senator's point. There is usually a surge at this time every year where a lot of students settle into a pattern and get their classes. Right across the country we have a couple of capacity issues, but we try to address it if it comes back up. I take the point and we will look at that. It is busy. I guess that is a route at the moment that can be challenging at other departure times, and that is another thing.
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Yes, it is. It is the same at evening times. It can be quite busy.
Mr. Allen Parker:
On the 321, which is the PSO service, as Mr. Kent said, with the college returning, we are seeing some demand challenges. We are reviewing those with the NTA and the NTA team with regard to seeing if it is going to continue and if we need to talk to the NTA about additional coaches and auxiliaries to support the demand. That is something we can come back on. We have seen over the past week that it has quietened off on a number of routes. That peak has happened, and people have then found their timetable and things have levelled off. There are a couple of routes we still need to talk about, but it then comes back to a discussion with the NTA and of funding that and the resources to do it. We are in that process with it.
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I have spoken to a lot of people and a lot have said that it need not be extra times but rather if capacity could be built. It could be double-decker buses instead of single-decker buses. You would get more people on at that time. It seems to be there is a squeeze at certain times in the area. My second question is about school transport, and I do not know if this is the appropriate group to bring it up with. There are obviously a few issues around capacity and there is the rural issue and the lack of routes. However, I have had so many people call me, who are bus drivers themselves. I had one man cry down the phone to me on a Thursday because he turned 70 on Thursday, and on Friday he could not drive the bus. Is that the witnesses' rule? I can never seem to get down to the nooks and cranny of where this rule came from, that at 70 they have to retire. Is that a Bus Éireann rule, an NTA rule or a Department rule?
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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Is it a policy they are ever going to look at again?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
It is reviewed quite frequently.
We worked last year with the Department, particularly when there was pressure on drivers. Everybody asked if there could be an opportunity to open it up. We worked with the Department, which commissioned a study through the Road Safety Authority by Professor Desmond O'Neill. He pointed to a number of critical issues that might emerge and which were risk factors attached to that. We have discussed that with the board because we have a safety committee and are trying to manage things. Much of what he suggested would be us taking on much increased risk with much higher levels of collision, based on what that study said. On the basis of that, we reviewed that. That study was only in August last year.
Regarding what we are doing to move forward because of demand, a third of vehicles that we operate are small public service vehicles of eight people or fewer, and the study is addressing buses or large vehicles. Buses for us can be anything from 34- to 79-seaters. They could be 14 m coaches, going up the sides of mountains and so on. We are saying that looks like it is a high risk. Unless somebody can produce a different study for us, we will be saying we will probably hold the policy. We are looking at small public service vehicles and asking if there are other risks with eight people or fewer. We are right in the middle of assessing that with an independent study to see if that is something we can do. As I said, we operate nearly 3,000 vehicles every morning. There is an opportunity to maybe move in that direction. It might be a start. For the larger vehicles, we have a study saying to be careful.
Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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It is only because the private operators can have that same bus driver, at 70, drive to the school and take them for soccer or school tours. I just wanted to make the point that it can be done. It just seems to be-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I ask Mr. Kavanagh what the main barriers facing private operators in maintaining or even expanding rural services are. I also ask him to comment on the extent of the engagement between private operators in the CTTC and the NTA.
Mr. J.J. Kavanagh:
We engage regularly with the NTA. During Covid, we had a strong working relationship. We had monthly meetings about how we could get back on track. In our processes with the NTA, we have to apply for licences or renew existing licences. It is a slow process in many ways. There is a commitment that we would have an answer within eight to ten weeks but that can slide quickly. We see opportunities and cannot take them up, so that is a difficulty. Regarding rural transport, the biggest problem we currently have is that we are fighting with the car. In many instances in the past, commercial services operated in rural areas on a viable basis because there were larger families and more people using them. There has been a fall-off in the usage of rural services. The introduction of Local Link services has impacted us too. We were excluded from the 20% fare reduction scheme brought in by the Government at the height of the cost-of-living crisis, which meant that our passengers had to pay more to travel. It excluded them from using the services to the same extent. We were excluded again from the recent scheme for under-nines, which impacts us. If a TFI route or Local Link route is in operation, people will use that as opposed to using our services. That happens particularly where there are services in close proximity to what we are doing.
We have grown our businesses over the years based on demand from the customer and listening to what the customer wants. Inter-urban and intercity services have grown substantially over the years and continue to flourish. As said in Mr. Crowley's submission, we want to be part of the solution. We are the biggest player in the market. We look after 95% of all school journeys and 100% of tourists visiting the country travel in private coaches. We provide nearly 100% of all the buses associated with Local Link today. Private hires, concerts, school trips and everything would be nearly 100% done by the private operator. Without the private operator in the marketplace, the country would quickly come to a standstill. It is recognised that we provide these services but our passengers are excluded, on a commercial basis, from benefiting from the reduction in fares that was offered to the public in general. It is probably a rural discriminatory matter. In urban areas, PSO services are to the fore and these reductions apply, but we and our passengers are excluded from them.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Kavanagh. I do not know if Mr. Creegan wants to respond to what Mr. Kavanagh said. In the time I have left, I want to focus on Local Link. I am a great champion of it. Great work was done in Tipperary. We have Waterford Local Link operating across south Tipperary too. The Indecon report goes back to June 2024. Where are we with that report regarding that medium to long-term vision for our Local Link structure and our transport co-ordination units, TCUs, realising their full potential? Is the Indecon report still on the table? Is there engagement with the Department about how we move forward? Is there engagement with the Local Link network?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
From memory, that report looked at eight options for how the transport co-ordination units could be structured. It came back with the recommendation that there should be a reduced number with some level of amalgamation and longer-term service contracts for those transport co-ordination units. A report was done for the Department. I do not think any great activity is going on with it at the moment. We will happily pick it up with the Department and see if we can bring closure to either accepting the recommendation in that report or coming up with a different position. We are happy to pursue that with the Department and bring clarity to that.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Does Mr. Creegan support better integration of the TCUs with the NTA?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
A number of options were looked at in that report. I know the Cathaoirleach is aware of it. One was to integrate them into the NTA but, for various reasons, it recommended against that. We value the local connectivity that those units provide. They are the people on the ground who are closest to where the services are being provided and who have the most knowledge. We have to be cautious that that amalgamation does not lose the local knowledge and connection to the community that we currently have. Some level of amalgamation may be possible but we do not to lose that source of information.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I agree. That local knowledge is crucial. With 15 companies paying 15 separate insurances, 15 accounting auditors, 15 solicitors and 15 payroll and accounting packages, operating on short, five-year contracts, regarding Local Link reaching its full potential, does Mr. Creegan agree that it is time to act on the Indecon report? I know there are eight options but we need a more medium- or long-term vision for our Local Link network.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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They are still operating as independent, charity status CLGs.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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To be clear, in terms of the Indecon report and the options, are there no discussions ongoing between the Department and the NTA?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Is there anything coming from the Local Link transport co-ordination units, TCUs, regarding amalgamation?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Ryan might comment quickly because my time is up.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Would the witnesses agree that reform is needed so that Local Link can realise its full potential?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I apologise for going over time.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I am delighted to see the witnesses in here again. I thank them for coming in. I regularly highlight the issues. I wish to start positively. I am a huge supporter of public transport. I take it an awful lot. I understand the customer experience. One of things that is working well is the B1 route in Balbriggan. Balbriggan is the youngest large town in the country. It is one of the fastest growing towns in the country. It is absolutely sprawling. The B1 is doing good work in trying to move people around. However, the town continues to get bigger. I would like to see the B1 route expanded if possible. There are new Land Development Agency, LDA, developments and Balbriggan is almost expanding into Balrothery. I would be really pleased if the NTA and Bus Éireann looked at that route again.
The next issue I wish to raise is the Local Link. I represent Dublin Fingal West, the most rural constituency in Dublin. We have four large towns but besides that we are quite rural. I have asked about having a Local Link service on the eastern side of the constituency. Unfortunately, I got a negative response. It is important to highlight that Rush and Lusk were both villages until recently. They are now large towns. If we look at the distance to travel, for example from one of the new estates in Rush to Rush and Lusk train station, which is in the middle of nowhere - it is not in either of the towns - it is an hour’s walk. I would like to see a Local Link service circling Skerries, Rush and Lusk. Will Mr. Creegan comment on those points?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I am open to anything.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I would appreciate that. On TFI Anseo, I was interested in that in relation to the Skerries, Rush and Lusk area. How is that pilot working? What is the possibility of any other areas being considered? How would we get them to be considered?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
As I said in my opening statement, we have done three pilot areas. The first one only started in August, the second in September and the third on Monday. We need to see how they are working first and understand the full implications, such as what it is going to cost if we expand this across the country. We set the targets that if we run this for the guts of a year, we will then be able to conclusively say whether this is a really good idea and whether we would like to expand it everywhere, including the areas the Deputy referenced, or something different. So far it has been well used and well appreciated, but there all sorts of things we still need to figure out, including what it is ultimately going to cost. We need to run the pilot and then make a decision.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The pilot will look at service use versus cost, for example, in a cost-benefit analysis. Is that how it will work?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
It will look at service use and cost and how useful people found the TFI Anseo app and whether there are issues with the user interface there. Ultimately, we would like to move all of demand-responsive transport, DRT, over to smart DRT if the pilot is successful. We will have to wait and see. As Mr. Creegan said, it is subject to funding.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It is an innovative idea. Well done. Regarding the timelines of that, the NTA is saying it will run for 12 months. How long is it to do the report?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Will I put that in my diary?
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I should clarify, in relation to the area that we are talking about, that there is the 33 bus service. As the witnesses know, however, it does not link up with the train times. Given it is on a rural and busy road, the entrance to the train station has regular accidents. Walking or taking other forms of active travel to the 33 bus service is not realistic, particularly coming from the Rush side. It very dark coming from Lusk side, but particularly from the Rush side. To encourage people to take public transport, it is important to have a safe accessible route to the train station and safe accessible public transport. I would appreciate if that was possible.
On school transport, there are several rural villages in my constituency. One of them is Ballyboughal. We have had persistent emails about the school transport there. Many people cannot get access to it because they go to a school in Lusk rather than Swords, and the distance to Lusk is slightly longer. The reason they go there is that they either cannot get into Swords or do not want to go to a Catholic school in Swords. They want to go to the Educate Together school in Lusk. We have had serious issues in trying to get school transport for them. I have had repeated complaints about the pick-up location being extremely unsafe. Like some of my colleagues, I have difficulty getting information. The safety of the bus stop is a serious concern for me.
Ms Miriam Flynn:
While we recognise that school transport provides a huge number of passenger journeys in rural Ireland, it operates in a different remit in that Bus Éireann has to implement clearly defined eligibility criteria set by the Department of education when we are planning school transport services. I understand that the area has come up on a number of occasions. We increased the capacity in that area for pupils last year. Capacity was increased in conjunction with the Department of education.
Regarding the queries about the pick-up point, we have gone out and looked at it. We are conscious that when we are dealing with 10,600 routes, they are rural in nature. Many of the pick-up points are not going to have defined infrastructure available at each location. In terms of our view of the route, we would deem it to be as safe as any other pick-up point we use for our school transport services. It is something we will keep under review. If there are any other issues with school transport, I am happy to provide my details to the Deputy to provide any other assistance she needs.
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate that.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I welcome the witnesses. My questions are mainly about Local Link and Bus Éireann. It is hard to say anything about the CTTC because we are very lucky to have a great operator down there in west Cork. Damien Long has transformed transport throughout west Cork, from the city down to the deep ends of west Cork.
Only for him, we would be in trouble. I am not being disrespectful to Bus Éireann or Local Link, but the rest are trotting around after them, and that is fine. We do not mind that as long as we have a delivery of service. I do not, in any way, want to be critical towards Local Link and Bus Éireann because what they and their bus drivers and staff are delivering is top class also, but there could be little changes. To be very honest, in the last number of years we have gone from a situation of 0% transport to 75% transport in many areas and actually it could be 100% in some of those areas. I am talking more about Local Link on this than Bus Éireann initially. I see areas like Baltimore which started with one bus route. It is a fantastic success. We ended up needing two buses going down to Baltimore, which is incredible. The Mizen run is an incredible situation. We had no transport service other than a Bus Éireann bus leaving at 7.30 a.m. and that was it. Now there is a bus several times a day. I am going to talk about Skibbereen and Castletownshend here too. That Baltimore bus goes in one way and out one way when there is another road coming back out of these areas. I mentioned that here the last day. Who can we sit down with and talk to in order to put a little common sense on this? We have gone from a situation where we had no transport, so we do not want to sound ungrateful. We have an incredible service now. Anyone who uses it cannot stop talking about it. It has transformed peoples' lives, but there are at least 20 or 30 people on a similar route on the way up. The bus should go in one route and come out the other route. It would not add mileage to it, but it would look after people. It makes common sense. It is not a major change. It is the same for Skibbereen and Castletownshend. A huge number of people from Toe Head, Tragumna and that area have contacted me. Again, the bus goes in one way and it comes back out the same way. They are asking for there to be a slight change and the bus to go in one way and come out a different way and take in these areas. I am not talking about taking a bus away up lanes picking up people. I am not talking about that. It would stay on the road but there would be a few small changes. There is a tender gone out for Timoleague, Grange, Clonakilty to Dunmanway. Again, that is great, but I am looking at areas that could have been included, either coming in or coming out. Councillor Daniel Sexton, a councillor in my area, is under pressure because people are asking why Kilcolman, Murragh, Aghyohil and Ballinascarty were not included in that. Couragh and Drinagh have no bus service whatsoever. These are little villages and little towns. I cannot understand why they were not included - it might have added half an hour to the whole journey - rather than creating a new route again that may not have been needed. I have not got all the solutions. I accept that, but our input and the ideas the local people see as a common sense way in and a common sense way out are not being acted on. I would appreciate being told how we can act on that. Maybe it means pulling that tender for a short period and adding another couple of areas that will not take the route crazily off the new route being proposed there. I am not taking the bus miles off its route.
Councillor Linda de Courcy has been on to me about a direct service between Clondalkin and DCU being reinstated. Bus Éireann might answer that. I think it was the No. 13 bus that used to go there but now it stops in the city and people have to change bus. It was always 35 to 50 minutes on the bus. Now it is taking 90 to 110 minutes by car. People are asking whether the service that was there before can be reinstated.
Regarding the over-70s, I wish I had hours to talk about this. Mr. Kent mentioned Professor Desmond O'Neill's report on the over-70s and the risk of crashes, illness and distraction but, surely be to God, a man or woman's attending doctor's report supersedes any other person's report. If it does not, they are wasting their time going to a doctor. If the doctor deems that person medically fit to drive a vehicle up to a certain age, surely that supersedes any other professor's report that the NTA is taking 100% recognition of. Obviously, safety and all that has to come into play.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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There are two minutes for an answer. I hate to remind you, Deputy Collins.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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The answer on Local Link could be very quick. Give me a name for Local Link and I will talk to someone.
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
The Deputy raised the issue of engagement with commercial operators in Cork. He mentioned Mr. Damien Long. That is part of a policy across the board of working with the commercial operators to work out and work through how we can improve services along a particular corridor. In the case of the Skibbereen to Cork route, we worked with Damien Long through our public transport regulation section to see if we could enhance the services, increase the frequency and also have better integration between services. We are continuing that process. It is ongoing. The Deputy mentioned Baltimore to Castletownshend and rerouting. We have had a few petitions from Tragumna, just west of Castletownshend, about rerouting the bus through there. Sometimes, when designing routes, we are trying to maximise the frequency and the utility of the bus and there is always a trade-off between the service being as direct as possible but also trying to serve areas. We are always trying to get that balance right. There may be times when it can be rerouted, with a small delay, but there are other times when a ten- or 15-minute delay in a service could result in lower frequency across the whole service. We always have those trade-offs. We do engage very closely with Cork Local Link. It has grown its patronage from 50,000 to 250,000 in the past six years. We have expanded out to Goleen and Schull and these different places. We are always open to ideas, and we are always listening. We get a lot of parliamentary questions in. Sometimes we say no, sometimes we say yes, but we look at every single question we get, and we then go back and discuss it with Local Link representatives and get their opinion. It is quite a collaborative affair.
The Deputy mentioned other places like Aghyohil and Drinagh. I am aware of those issues, and we are in discussions with Cork on that, but it may not be part of the solution the Deputy mentioned, between Dunmanway and Timoleague.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their statements. I note what they said about the number of bus journeys in the State increasing by 32 million in one year alone and that TFI local services are up 5.8 million in one year alone. That is reflected in Kerry, where the Local Link Kerry has been a very successful public transport model. There were 160,000 journeys there in 2019 but this year it expects there will be over 530,000 passenger trips by Local Link Kerry, so it is a great success story.
I want to pick up on an earlier question about the transport infrastructure associated with that. It came to me when a student in MTU in Tralee asked me about trying to ensure a bus shelter was installed on the west of the town. There are a number of routes coming from Fenit, Ballyheigue and Ardfert into the town. The bus stop is about a mile to the west side of Tralee town. There does not seem to be a very clear process. I think Mr. Creegan said that it has to be approved by the local authority. Driving up through Foynes and Abbeyfeale, I can see the new bus shelters that have been installed there in a relatively short time. It seems that when I go to the council, it talks about going to the NTA, while the NTA is saying it has to be approved by the local authority. There is talk of section 38 procedures. Is there any way it could be clarified to give a timeline and a clear process as to how necessary bus shelters can be installed? We all know about westerly wind and rain, especially going into the winter. It seems to be a year now since I first started raising the issue of this bus shelter. There is space there. The process to get a bus shelter installed just seems very cumbersome. In other counties, it seems to be easier or quicker to do it. Is there consistency across the various local authorities, in the witnesses' opinion?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
The Deputy is correct. There is a different level of provision in different local authorities. Without dwelling on it too long, for years we struggled to put in bus shelters. We could not rock up to Kerry with a digger and start digging up the footpath. We needed to go through the council, and it was hard to get the councils to devote time to it. Two years ago, we started to provide an allocation of €500,000 to every council in the country for the provision of bus shelters and bus stops.
In the case of Kerry County Council, it has €500,000 to put in whatever shelters and bus stops we can agree with it. The only thing we need to do is to agree the locations. This is not a problem. It just has to be done. The issue for the council then is that it has lots of priorities, as the Deputy knows better than me, and it is a question of getting attention. Some councils do quite a bit of work in the bus shelter and bus stop area while other councils do less. The simple process is that the council is now responsible for putting in bus shelters. We provide the bus shelter to the council free of charge. We have a contractor that will supply it and deliver it.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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It is a question of resourcing in the various local authorities. Is that it?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Creegan. I have another question in relation to town services. Town bus services are being introduced in Carlow town, which has a population of 27,000, Portlaoise with a population of 23,000, Letterkenny and Athlone with a population of 22,000 each, and Mullingar, also with a population of 22,000. Has the NTA got something against Tralee, which has a population of 26,000? I think Mr. Creegan anticipated that coming. The Tralee People's Bus Service has been ploughing away for years and years and serving the town very well. I would encourage that it would be part of any renewed bus services in the town covering the three or four different routes that will have to be installed. What is happening with a bus service for Tralee?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
The Deputy is right. The reason we have not put on a town service in Tralee is because there already is a good commercial town service there. Is it something we could work with the commercial operator on in terms of improvements? Perhaps. There are towns, though, that obviously do not have any bus service at all or have not had until we have introduced services. They were obviously going to be a priority. Once we have a service up and running in Letterkenny, we will be moving into round 2 of what we will do with towns. Towns such as Tralee, Newbridge, Naas and others with populations above 20 000, in particular, will be looked at in a bit more detail.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Would the NTA have a discussion with the Tralee People's Bus Service?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I have a question for all the witnesses. In the recent press briefing, the Minister refused to rule out fare increases. This has already started. For example, the situation has already been reversed for mature students using a Leap Card and attending college in the North. Is that appropriate or should that be kept for students from the North studying down here? In light of this change, what impact might fare hikes have, particularly in relation to rural Ireland, which is what we are discussing today? Is it a backward step?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We are into Government policy here in terms of fare increases. Basically, we are running a set of services of a certain size and we get two sources of revenue. One is fares and the other is Government subsidy. They have to balance out to pay for the service. If we are not getting a Government subsidy, it can be seen why more fares are needed. However, it is really a policy decision.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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If the fares go up, will the continued expansion in numbers stop accelerating?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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It is in a more positive direction when fares go down.
Mr. David Conway:
If I can come in quickly just on the fare issue, as commercial operators we keep our fares extremely keen to attract patronage onto our services. As we mentioned earlier, it is very important as fare reduction schemes are implemented that they be extended to include us as well so that people living in those more rural areas benefit from those reduced fares and additional patronage is attracted onto our services.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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As Mr. Conway has raised that issue, could he elaborate on the exclusion of his members from the under-nines free fares scheme?
Mr. David Conway:
We are already part of the Department of Social Protection free travel scheme. We are also participating in the student young adult card scheme, which gives a certain category and age category 50% off. We have, though, been excluded from the under-nines scheme, as the Deputy mentioned. We do not understand why. The technology, auditing systems and so on are there to include us. It certainly discriminates against certain parts of Ireland and young people, including Tralee.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Is that a policy decision made by the Government?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Okay. I thank Deputy Daly.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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We might include that matter in the recommendation then.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. It is very important and that is why I was quite happy to let the Deputy go over time. It is very important to follow up on. It was a point quite well made in the opening statement as well. It is something I support as Chair. I call Deputy Shane Moynihan, who is our Leas-Chathaoirleach.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding that last issue, I will raise it with my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, as well.
I will start with Bus Éireann and the CTTC. In respect of the broader transport workforce, could the witnesses comment on the skills shortages and skills challenges being faced at the moment? We had the urban operators in a few weeks ago and they pointed out a number of issues around skills in that workforce, so I would like to get a view from the rural side of the house. Are similar skills shortages apparent? The CTTC might go first.
Mr. Brendan Crowley:
It is a nationwide problem with drivers and mechanics. It is no different if it is commercial or PSO operators. We are all in the same boat. There is a labour shortage and we need to be looking at how to improve the supply of drivers. If I could link in what we were just talking about two seconds ago, I will give the Deputy a real example of the kinds of thing causing problems in relation to drivers. We have seen the under-nines scheme roll out in my area. When people get on the bus in the morning and hand their under-nine cards to the drivers, the drivers say they cannot take them. I looked at it and thought, who wants to start their day every morning by having a discussion with a youngster or their guardian as to why we are not going to take a card? It creates hostility for our drivers. We are in a space and time where people are less patient.
We participate in the strategic workforce committee in the Department of Transport to try to overcome this problem. We are also involved in the charter for passenger safety within the Department of Transport. All these things, though, come back to the small decisions made that have unintended consequences. Failing to address or reverse those issues means they become intended consequences. We have had lots of discussions about the over-70s and all that kind of stuff. We will park that for a minute. The people coming to work for us every day need to be coming to work in a pleasant environment and not in a challenging environment, where first thing every morning they are getting into an argument about whether somebody should pay the fare or not. It is a very small thing that would actually help us.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I just spoke to my own team yesterday. Recruitment is the number one priority for us at the moment. We have lots of areas around the country, with the exception of one area at the moment, where we are constrained, barely meeting demand and staying standing. It could change next month, though, because a lot of these other businesses, whether they be Amazon or retail enterprises, are growing and taking drivers as well. For us, therefore, it is never-ending. We cannot stand still on it. We are gearing up our training teams. Together with the CTTC, we are engaging with the Department's workforce task force so that we can address all the issues. We have some issues we have to navigate in relation to licensing, CPC cards and all the things we are doing. From our point of view, at the end of November, we will have to go abroad to recruit. We said that two weeks ago. We will have to go abroad to meet some of the demands. We have heard from the NTA that what we have still coming ahead of us is more Connecting Ireland and more BusConnects. They are good opportunities and we want to be able to deliver on them. For me, it is the number one priority at the moment in the business.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Kent.
I will move on to the TFI and the Anseo pilot, which sounds really promising and positive. I have a general question concerning older people, especially in more isolated parts of the country.
Obviously, this is still at pilot stage. Speaking hypothetically, what safeguards is the National Transport Authority putting in place for people who may not necessarily have access to a smartphone or may not be digitally literate? Is that something the organisation has thought of? I know that flies in the face of the idea of an app. One of the great benefits of rural connectivity has been that it has broken down isolation and loneliness, especially among older people by providing avenues for them to socialise. One thing I am hearing more and more in my office is that people may not necessarily feel comfortable with a smartphone or may not have access to digital technology to allow them to participate. Have the NTA thought about that or put any safeguards in place?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We thought about it, and that is one of the reasons we are doing pilots first. We already have demand-responsive services in the Local Link ecosystem that do not require smartphones. People can call into the office and book their journeys. For this one, however, we will see what emerges out of the pilot to determine how big a problem that is. We understand this could be an issue for a small number of people. We will make a judgment in 12 months' time on what we need to do about that.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Just for general information, when the NTA is designing Local Link routes and wants to optimise connectivity with the more mainstream rail and larger intercity routes, how is that work done? Does it collect data on usage of Local Link services, and how does that feed in? How often are the services tweaked? On the other side, are the larger, more mainstream routes tweaked also?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
Integration with rail services is very important but there are many factors that need to be taken into account when designing a public transport route. These include frequency, efficiency of the service and serving local need, so going into work for 9 a.m. and coming home at 5.30 p.m. It is about trying to balance - I talked about balance earlier - the local need with trying to integrate it with onward connections. In some cases, it is not possible to do that but we certainly try to do so. It is one of the many issues we have to consider when we are designing routes.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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As part of design, how does the NTA measure the success of that connectivity and integration? Mr. O'Donovan made the reasonable point that the NTA is not always able to do it. How does it measure if it has been done well or then allow for the cost?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
We have access to good data regarding patronage, so we can see how many people are using the service to go to a train station. Generally, the local need is a lot higher than the need to interchange but we monitor and look at that. It is also something we get a lot of representations on. We are constantly looking at how we can improve integration. It is just not possible every time, however.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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In respect of those large interchange hubs, how does the NTA get the data on how people are travelling to them? I assume from Mr. O'Donovan's answer that it might not suit some people to have the Local Link service bring them to the train station so they will drive or get a taxi to the train station. Is the NTA collecting data on how people approach those larger public transport hubs to understand where they are coming from?
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Does the NTA have a specific measure on this? For instance, does it know that, say, 60% of the people who arrived at this train station today came by private car?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
Not off the top of my head but it depends on the situation and which area we are dealing with. If we are upgrading a particular hub or interchange, we would do all that work in advance as part of the upgrade. For example, that would have been done for the Bray interchange and we have done it for the hub in Nenagh. There are various examples of places where we focus in on an area and do the research as part of the design of that hub.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I will start with the issue of Connecting Ireland bus services. It was mentioned that in 2024, 45 new or enhanced bus routes were introduced under Connecting Ireland. What is the expected figure for 2025?
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Is that 35 for all of 2025?
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Is there a reason that figure has dropped since last year?
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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That leads to my next question. I want to ask about the challenges the NTA has in getting new services up and running. One example from my local area, which Mr. O'Donovan will be well aware of, is the town of Athenry where we lost our private bus operator in September 2024. The NTA determined that a PSO was required there but it has been over a year and we still do not have a service between Athenry and Galway city. What we are being told now is that an existing service, Bus Éireann's 425A from Mountbellew to Galway, will be rerouted through Athenry, rather than having a stand-alone service for Athenry town. Why does it take so long to get a service like this up and running? Will the witnesses talk more generally about the challenges in getting these services running? Does the NTA have the necessary funding in place?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
The Deputy is correct that we did a determination last year following the withdrawal of the commercial operator in Athenry. We designed a service, which was to realign an existing service, as the Deputy knows. That went out to Bus Éireann in November last year. This year with Bus Éireann, which can speak for itself, there has been a big emphasis on improving capacity, punctuality and reliability across the entire network. It has to focus its resources but it can talk about that in more detail.
With regard to the service in question, we are looking at trying to get it in place before the end of the year and for Athenry to have more frequent bus services. There are also some rail issues going on there. Sometimes with these things, delivery can be quick, while at other times, it can get dragged out a little.
Mr. Allen Parker:
As Mr. O'Donovan said, it is probably a matter of the volume of change we are handling, thankfully. As such, it is a growth in environment where we are dealing with additional demand and capacity and passenger demands. It is trying to work through everything. Ultimately, once the decision is made on what the new route will be, the next process will be building the vehicle links, the driver rosters and the discussion and negotiation with our employees on the change to rosters. Again, that is happening across the country. Thankfully, we have put in significant service enhancements across the country. Unfortunately, we cannot do everything at once but, as Mr. O'Donovan said, we are aiming to get that service by the end of the year. We will come back to the Deputy directly with the timelines on that.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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That would be appreciated by many people, particularly in my town, which is very large commuter town. To be left without a bus service for over a year has a huge impact. If that is something that could be accelerated, it would be much appreciated.
I also want to raise Bus Éireann's route 51 between Cork and Galway city. That is a very important bus service for many towns and villages in south Galway in my constituency, such as the likes of Gort, Kilcolgan, Ardrahan and Clarinbridge. There are serious capacity issues on those services. People have been in touch with me who have been left at the side of the road, with buses passing by at full capacity. There is also an issue with the lack of late services. We do not have services from Galway city after 8 p.m. for people who are returning home. Are the witnesses aware of these capacity issues and might they be looked into?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I do not have the detail on that now but, in general, because there is such a return to college in the past couple of weeks, there is a surge in a number of routes. Once student numbers coming in settle down, we will have a look at it and we will then be able to say if it is an issue. I agree, however, that it is a very important service, if we can do it. It is not our intention to leave anyone behind. We have to try to do it. If there is sufficient demand, we will always look at that and see if there is capacity that we can add.
I will take the point away for today and we will have a look at it.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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If Bus Éireann could look into it, that would be great. It is causing a lot of concern. Every year when school transport comes around, it is a very stressful experience for a lot of parents. A lot of them are left in the dark as to whether their children have been allocated seats when the start of the school year comes around. One thing that comes up again and again is the issue of bus passes not arriving or being posted to wrong the address. I am interested in understanding what work Bus Éireann is doing with the Department to modernise the school transport scheme. For example, has it looked into digital school bus passes to solve the issue of passes not arriving or going missing?
Ms Miriam Flynn:
We are at 179,000 tickets issued for school transport this year. We are 5% up on last year. We are conscious that we have quite a tight period to get services up and running. We appreciate there are challenges for families in particular who may not get tickets. As advised previously, it is an eligibility scheme. There are clearly defined criteria to determine who is eligible for a school transport ticket and priority goes to ensuring that cohort is facilitated first and has tickets. All other pupils are then given access to capacity where it exists.
On the tickets, we are looking at smart ticketing with the Department of education. We have an ongoing project to see if we can replace existing tickets with a smart ticket. The intention is it would give us far more information on utilisation of services, modernise a number of areas around the application process and make it more customer friendly in facilitating support for parents.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Why has that not been rolled out yet? Surely the technology is available. Parents get a confirmation email for their tickets. Why can that not be included?
Ms Miriam Flynn:
They get a confirmation email when they are allocated a ticket. There may be a couple of days in the timeline between the pupil getting the physical ticket and being made aware they are getting a ticket. We are working with the Department. A lot of these projects are subject to the availability of funding. It is part of the scheme review undertaken by the Department. There is a clear recognition, as advised by the Minister recently, that smart technology will form a key part of school transport going forward.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Flynn. The final speaker in the first round is Deputy O'Gorman. I will then call Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, after which we will then go to the second round for members, beginning with Senator Cosgrove. I call Deputy O'Gorman.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I will begin by recognising the phenomenal growth of Local Link services and what all the witness organisations contributed to achieving that. The Green Party tabled a Private Members' motion just before the summer break on continuing the investment in and expansion of public transport. I was struck by Deputies from the Government and Opposition, from parties and Independents, all speaking of improved services in their areas, including towns and villages that had always been without a service and were now linked in. Journey numbers have grown fivefold, I think, in three or four years. It is important to recognise that. We want to continue that momentum.
The plan for the delivery of Local Link services is set out in Connecting Ireland. I am interested in the ongoing roll-out of Connecting Ireland, particularly in 2026. What new services will be rolled out in 2026? Has the NTA received confirmation of budget funding for new services in 2026? If not, is the NTA expecting it? What scale of new services can be rolled out in 2026?
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
As of yet, we have not received a budget allocation for 2026 in respect of new services. That will be worked through by the Department of Transport over the next few weeks, I think. Presumably, we will hear soon but we have not been told yet. Under Connecting Ireland, for the remaining phases, over the next two years we want to introduce about 86 new and improved services if funding is available.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Does Mr. Creegan have an indicative figure of how much it would cost to successfully roll out all 86 new services?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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It would cost €20 million annually to deliver all 86 services.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Does Mr. Creegan have a sense of what additional passenger numbers those 86 services would deliver?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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In terms of distribution, would those 86 be across the country? Are they congregated in any areas? Are they primarily rural or would some include town services such as Portlaoise- or Clonmel-type services?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
The funding as part of Connecting Ireland would not cover the town services. That is dealt with separately in a towns programme. In relation to the distribution of services, our approach to date has been to try to spread it among all the transport co-ordination units, TCUs. In most of the TCUs, we have one or two to come in over the next couple of years. There are a few areas in, for example, Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny where we need to focus and do more. We have projects lined up. In some areas, we have broadly completed the main Connecting Ireland programme. Now, we are focusing on areas where there is a dearth of services and we are trying to improve that. We have a clear idea of what we want to do. At the end of that, there will be business as usual, namely, the ongoing need to upgrade services. There has been a particular emphasis in the past few years on evening services, which are something we have done more of in that time, and people demand more frequency on the services currently operating. We are trying to balance expanding services into new areas and improving existing services.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Expansion of existing services would have an additional cost over the €20 million to deliver the 86 new services.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I will switch to a slightly different subject. I am very aware that a commuter in Dublin pays a fraction of the cost many commuters in other parts of the country pay for a journey of the same distance. On the NTA's national fare strategy, are there efforts towards a greater degree of equalisation of fares, particularly for rural bus services and bus services going into our regional towns and cities? I know in some of these areas the bus services are not PSO and are done by our commercial colleagues. Will the fare strategy be able to take steps to start equalising that quite different and significantly more expensive situation commuters outside of Dublin often face?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
The fare strategy is being rolled out. This year, we moved outside Dublin to the commuter area around Dublin. Next up is Cork. We hope to do regional cities and then towns. In cities and towns, we are looking at introducing a flat fare, where there is not one already, within a certain distance from the centre of the town or city. We will then move on to everywhere else. That will realistically be a couple of years away but we are planning for it and how we will do it.
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Is there an indicative timeline for the flat fare in towns?
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Does Mr. Ryan have a sense of what the town flat fare will be?
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
At the moment, in towns where we have a flat fare, it is €1.50. We are examining the boundaries of that to see whether we will introduce that fare for both a service going through towns, where people get on and off, and the dedicated town services themselves. There is a bit of work to be done in that regard.
With regard to fares outsides of towns and in the rest of rural Ireland, as the Deputy will know from the fares strategy, we are looking at an distance-based, as-the-crow-flies approach to setting fares between point A and point B. That will take a bit longer. It will probably be into 2027 or 2028 before we look at that. As I said, work is under way on how we will introduce that.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to get the opportunity to speak. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for coming back in today because there are a lot of issues. In tandem with the questions I raised two weeks ago, I have a new one regarding Iron Mills, which is on the 270 route from Kenmare through Kilgarvan to Killarney. There is a request, which I will send on to Bus Éireann, for a bus stop at Iron Mills to serve the people of Crosstown, Gortacoosh, Glenfesk and that entire area. It is only my suggestion that the bus could drive into the old N22, where there is a turnoff lane and everything. It would be much safer to go in there. There is even room to turn the bus, if it wanted to come back out again, or it could continue on the old road and come out just before the railway crossing, which the witnesses know well, going into Killarney. That is an option. I ask Bus Éireann to consider that proposal because there is a massive number of houses in that vicinity, in areas such as Crosstown, Artigallivan and Headfort. People could park, turn and wait there for the bus or whatever. That is a new request I have.
It may be too soon to ask Mr. Kent about the Headfort school run that Bus Éireann was to consider. That school has ten children now. It just received that number in the last days of September, but we are being told we have to wait another year. There is no need to wait another year. These children are going to school and a bus would facilitate the parents who have to work and everything else. It could drive around that way, pick children up and take them to one of those schools. Does Bus Éireann have any answer to that yet?
Ms Miriam Flynn:
I will answer that. One of the key criteria for establishing a service each school year is that we have a minimum of ten pupils using it. While I recognise that the Deputy is saying that there are now ten pupils, that number must be secured prior to the closing date each year. That is one of the criteria because it allows us time to be able to plan routes, procure services that are required and go through the checks and vetting that we have to go through. While we are looking at the numbers again in conjunction with the local office, as I said, the criteria are that we need ten pupils, who are eligible under the guidelines of the scheme, to be in place by the closing date. That is one of the criteria.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am conscious of the time. I am asking for the criteria to be changed to allow for consideration, given that it is so early in the term. It is still before Hallowe'en and allowance should be made for that. I ask Bus Éireann to consider that again.
I also asked Mr. Kent about the Farranfore bus stop on the N22, which is located outside the local pharmacy. People are waiting there in cars to pick up and drop off passengers. Is there any update on my ask that the bus would go in and turn around in the railway station? There is a bus shelter there. As it is, people are left standing in the rain on both sides of a busy national primary route. When the bus pulls in, the queue can often stretch 1 km back up towards Killarney, and likewise in the other direction from Tralee. One lane of a narrow national primary route is blocked when the bus pulls in. Has Mr. Kent any answer to that?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I wrote to the Deputy last Friday in this regard. The Deputy should have received that response. A team of people went down to Farranfore the Friday after the Deputy first raised this matter with me. I was sent 100 pictures. There are little issues with accessing the station, turning the bus and funding. These are issues that are going to have to be sorted out. I will also look at alternatives outside the station. There are areas outside the pharmacy there if we were to come back, but we would need to engage with the council in that regard. At the moment, my response to the Deputy is that, yes, we have had a look but there are a few issues that will require a conversation with Irish Rail, with which I said I would try to have a conversation today. Issues regarding funding and the local authority will also need to be addressed if we are going to do it. That is based on what I have seen. It is not as simple as I had hoped for. I also said that I support the Deputy's idea of trying to ensure we integrate the bus with the station. It will not happen at the flick of a switch, however. It will require a bit of collaboration.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Bus Éireann is working on it.
Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I heard Mr. Kent mention that Bus Éireann is considering allowing people over 70 to drive eight-seater buses or whatever. I am not happy with that figure because they are well capable of driving a medium-sized bus, which has between 25 and 30 seats. An 80-year-old can drive a car with four passengers in it anyway, and there is no question at all legally in that regard. Nationally, throughout the country, there are plenty of fellas of that age driving with four people in the car. I do not see such a proposal as much of an advance in what we have been seeking for many years. Surely, if those people took one or two medical tests each year, it would be surer for Bus Éireann than maybe having younger drivers who are not medically tested as much at all.
With regard to the 270 service, I ask Bus Éireann to provide more bus stops along the route. It is grand to see the buses passing, but it is not much good to a lot of people if they are only looking at them but cannot get onto them. There is an awful length of road from Kenmare to Kilgarvan and on to Killarney. It is no good if people cannot park and get on or if the bus will not stop for them. I ask Bus Éireann to keep that in mind.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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We will go to a second round. I call Senator Cosgrove, who will be followed by Senator Duffy.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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I wish to ask Mr. Kent and Mr. Parker from Bus Éireann about the N17. It is a national primary route. It is about the Tubbercurry bus, that is, the Galway to Derry bus. I am sure Bus Éireann has received a lot of correspondence about this. At the moment, that bus leaves Galway and it is full by the time it gets to Tubbercurry. There is only one bus in the morning. Tubbercurry is the second biggest town in the county. It is arriving into Tubbercurry in the morning and then there is only one coming back in the evening. There are a lot of people who have hospital appointments, particularly older people.
I also wish to raise the issue of fares. Maybe this is part of the national fares strategy as well. The Local Link services are cheaper than the Bus Éireann routes. Am I right in thinking that a one-way adult ticket is €11.20 from Tubbercurry to Sligo?
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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That is a lot considering it is only a half-hour journey. That is one question.
My other question is to Bus Éireann as well. It relates to a bus to Athlone. This has come up a few times. I use public transport all the time. Often, in my previous role, I had meetings in, say, Athlone, but we cannot get a train to Athlone and there is no direct bus. If I go on the Expressway booking platform online, it just says there are no fares available. It does not state that people have to go to Longford and get a connection there. Athlone – and I am sure this has come up as well – is in the centre of the country. There should be a direct route from Sligo along the route to Athlone, or at least somewhere showing we can book that journey, rather than stating that there are no routes available.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
On the Senator's first point, that is Expressway route 64. It is a commercial service. We operate it under Expressway.
It is not subvented like PSO services are here on the other side. To a large extent, we set our fares based on our costs and trying to make sure the route is sustainable. The fares are not necessarily set by the NTA. It goes back to the operator. We are in dialogue. The NTA sees our fares. The issue we have at the moment on commercial fares, which is related to the earlier point, is that while a lot of the low fares that have been operating with the 20% reduction have been good and have promoted more public transport usage, we also have increasing costs. That is coming through for everybody, fuel, carbon tax, labour rates. We all have them loading on. We are simply trying to recover where we are across all the commercial fares in the absence of subvention.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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Are there any plans to improve capacity on that route? People are saying that the bus is often full by the time it arrives in Tubbercurry.
Mr. Allen Parker:
As Mr. Kent said, it is a commercial route. If we believe there is demand there, it is something we will actively look at. We are looking at the timetable. It is a challenging route to operate. I thought the Senator was going to make the point about congestion, reliability and timing. That route is terrible. It is a long route. There is a significant amount of road works ongoing at the minute along the corridor. We are seeing our buses running 20 to 40 minutes late regularly. We are looking at the route itself and the timetable.
Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)
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It is in the absence of the western rail corridor, I suppose. They are just being disadvantaged because they are not on a Local Link route as well.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I will take my own additional slot. I would like to raise the town bus in Clonmel. As Mr. O'Donovan knows, it was established in December 2023. We are coming up to the second anniversary. It is a real success and is making a real difference in Clonmel with strong passenger numbers and growth. I was in the Chamber when that service was launched. I cannot remember if Mr. O'Donovan or John Nott was down. We were promised a review. I raised it previously at a committee hearing with Mr. O'Donovan. Where are we with that review? Can the NTA commit to a review on the second anniversary of the service? What I mean by that is just having a chat, engagement with the members of Clonmel borough district, the Oireachtas Members and officials from Tipperary County Council, to see if we can make changes to the service such as a number of additional stops. I am thinking of areas like Ard na Gréine, Meadowlands and others, just to make it a better service. Can we commit to the review today and identify when we can have it?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
I will let Mr. Ryan answer the question about the actual town service. I want to add that it was not just the town service that was improved in the last year. I represent Connecting Ireland today. We also improved route 356, doubling the frequency on that, which provides a town service in Clonmel. We are hoping it will provide a part-time service in Dungarvan as well when we get the bus stops. We have improved that service and doubled the frequency on it. We are still monitoring how it is going.
Mr. Jeremy Ryan:
With all town services, we review them after launch. Only recently we made changes to the Kilkenny town service as a result of a review there. Of course we are open to having reviews of the service. I will speak to John Nott when I go back to the office about whether or when we carry out a review in the Clonmel area.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I would ask that the NTA and Mr. Nott make contact with Tipperary County Council and we have at least a sit-down and schedule a review perhaps after that initial meeting, and perhaps agree the terms of reference and scope of the review. I would ask that we at least have some kind of sit-down before the end of this year.
I want to move the conversation towards accessibility. I talked about it a lot last week in the context of our urban bus fleet. What percentage of our rural bus fleet and Local Link fleet is wheelchair accessible?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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What about Bus Éireann?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
Wheelchair accessible but not low floor wheelchair accessible. We have introduced a number of them. We are continuing to see if we can get the low floor done. When you bring in the low floor, you also need the investment in the infrastructure at those stops. That is also a challenge. Those are the things we are trying to do and migrate through the city. There is an ongoing programme for accessibility works but it is going to take a number of years. We are continuing to address that every year. We have a lot of feedback from people in the disability user group as well, in relation to stops and prioritising areas, so that is what we are working to.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Does the CTTC want to comment on wheelchair accessibility?
Mr. David Conway:
We have gone through a detailed review with the National Transport Authority to determine the levels of accessibility in the commercial fleet. The data is all there now and certain proposals are being drawn up to ensure that the commercial fleet becomes more accessible. It is very important to point out that all of the accessibility that is there in the public transport fleet at the moment is publicly funded. Commercial operators are not publicly funded. To make our fleets more accessible, it will be important that funding schemes are put in place to assist us.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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My last question is about people who have a hidden disability. Have we plans to introduce a nationally recognised invisible disability card or equivalent, so that passengers do not have to repeatedly explain their condition?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Are all drivers trained with regard to the JAM card?
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Senator Duffy is next. I apologise, I jumped the queue.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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I thank our guests for the opportunity to discuss investment in rural transport and much-needed infrastructure. I wanted to come back on different locations in County Mayo. I mentioned Charlestown. Is the best mechanism just to follow up with our guests directly? Do we have the contact details?
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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That would be great. There are a number of locations in the county, including Bohola park, Kilkelly and Bofeenaun that require bus stops where there are services being well used. Unfortunately in the west of Ireland, as we know, it rains twice as much as it does on the east coast. Bus stops are really well needed in those locations. I mentioned Charlestown. Castlebar train station is another location. I have been talking to Mayo County Council and it has been raised with me. I welcome the linking with local authorities in terms of delivering this infrastructure.
My final point, if it is appropriate, is about school transport. It is a regular challenge to try to meet everyone's needs. I have a particular situation. The full school bus provider, Willie B coaches, is operating the service. There is a family of five children who are on the line. The capacity is at 16. The coach operator is able to increase capacity to allow this family to be included on the route. Unfortunately I am hitting a brick wall in trying to get this family of five kids onto the service. If it is possible to engage on it, there is capacity from the coach operator, who is able to increase the fleet size from a 16-seater to a 24-seater. This would mean the family of five children would be able to get on this new route, which I have been campaigning for. I thank our guests for delivering it. A slight increase in capacity would make a transformational difference for this particular family. If we could engage on it, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Stephen Kent:
We will have a look at the particular case.
I must preface my remarks by saying that we implement the criteria and the eligibility criteria. For instance, for concessionary ticket applications, there are rules about us not being able to increase the size of a bus, if it is not an eligible child, over a concessionary ticket holder. I wanted to say all of that. When we exchange emails with the Senator, he might share the case and we will look into it properly for him.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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To complete the order, it will be Deputy Collins followed by Deputies Daly, Moynihan and O'Hara.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I will start where I ended earlier on with Bus Éireann. I have a couple of questions in relation to a direct bus service between Clondalkin and DCU, which our local councillor, Linda de Courcy, has been very strong on. Will that direct route be reinstated rather than having to change over in the city?
The issue of 70-year-olds is a bugbear of mine. A lot of bus services are being discontinued because the driver has reached the age of 70 and the operator cannot get a replacement. It was stated that Bus Éireann is taking a report from a professor who says there is a risk of crashes, which obviously has to be respected, as well as multi-illnesses and distraction. Surely, however, the medical record of a driver, male or female, for all of their life, supersedes that professor's report? Both have to be taken into account. If a local doctor, or a doctor of Bus Éireann's choice, who has been dealing with a person gives a full clear medical report for somebody, surely that supersedes anything Bus Éireann got previous to that.
I also have an issue with bus shelters. In my own area, people are standing in the rain outside a church waiting for a bus that stops five or six times a day. A bus shelter would be vital there.
There is one other thing and, unfortunately, it goes on. It is rural isolation. Looking at the census, it is a huge issue in many rural communities, for which rural transport and Bus Éireann services are game-changers. Sadly, some people are left behind or cannot get down to the bottom of the road, apart from using taxis on a continuous basis, which people cannot afford, or they cannot get taxis at all. I know somebody has got to pick up the tab for a service that should be there, especially in peninsula areas, to pick up elderly people to bring them to the main local bus. That is something rural transport could look into.
I would like an answer to the issue of the over-70s and that situation in Clondalkin.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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What about the over-70s?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
My earlier comment stands. We are looking to the research to move to small public service vehicles in the first instance. That is what we are looking at in the middle of that. In relation to the other piece, as I said, unless somebody can produce to us another study that would help inform it, our policy still stands on that.
Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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Rural isolation is the other matter.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
We mentioned that we introduced a smart demand-responsive service. The idea of it is these are not scheduled routes. You are able to go offline, to put it like that, and pick up people. We already have a certain level of demand-responsive service in Local Link. At the end of this pilot, we will see whether we are able to roll that out more and put in some extra service provision as part of it. That seems to be the solution.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I have one question in relation to emissions. What alternative fuel strategies are Bus Éireann considering for rural bus transport? For the NTA, what is the timeline for moving towards hydrogen or HVO? Will it be learning lessons from Athlone? What are the long-term plans for electrifying the rural bus fleets? The CCTC representatives mentioned making HVO adoption feasible. What supports or incentives could be put in place to ensure there is a more rapid transition?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I will take some of those. We have put in the Athlone town service. All of the electric transition has been funded by the NTA and there is a programme. We have gone from Athlone into Limerick. We are currently working on Cork, Galway and Sligo to get them ready. They will probably all land in the next 24 months. That is where we are in relation to those. It will then follow on in Waterford city. There is a priority for towns and cities for EVs. That is the general direction of those. As we said, we are constrained with rural services. That is mostly because, to a large extent, when you get EVs you have to then charge. We will look at that and say, ideally, for shorter runs, EVs are a long-term solution, but we are trying to focus on cities first.
What is the bridge in the short term? The bridge in the next couple of years is the movement into biofuel blends, where you can lower emissions, if you can. At best, it is about having vehicles that will accept Euro 6 engines, which we have. Those are the lowest emission vehicles we have. Believe it or not, we still have ones that have to be upgraded to the lowest version of diesel. We are trying to do that. The second part is we are moving into a blend at the moment. Some of the blend CIÉ is receiving at the moment has 30% HVO blended into that fuel. That will reduce it to some extent.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Will all of Bus Éireann's new town services be electric when it expands into other towns? Will these be zero-emissions buses, when they are starting?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Kent said it would be within 24 months.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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It will be 2027 when it will all be done.
Mr. Brendan Crowley:
It is essential that our in-fleet vehicles and Euro 6 vehicles can burn HVO or diesel, or it can be mixed and matched. It does not really matter. Most of our fleet used on interurban or rural services all meet that criteria. The problem for us right now is that HVO is readily available at petrol stations, but there is a price differential that can be 8 cent to 10 cent. Also, as it stands, when diesel hits a certain mark, we get an excise rebate from the State on it to help with the cost, which is not available with HVO. There is about a 5% difference in the calorific value of HVO versus diesel. To put it in monetary terms, there is probably about a 20 cent to 25 cent difference per litre in HVO. It would be about coming up with some mechanism to cover or close that gap.
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I will return to the question of accessibility and disability. To double check, what is the overall status of the fleet? Is it almost all or 95%? What is the overall status of the rural transport fleet in terms of being accessible vehicles?
Shane Moynihan (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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There is also the other side of it. The bus is only part of the journey. For people who have disabilities, there is also the approach to the bus stop, and getting there and so on. What sort of work has the NTA done in proofing the experience that the public transport user with a disability will have in terms of waiting at a bus stop, approaching the bus stop, getting on the bus and so on? The JAM card training for drivers was mentioned, which is an excellent initiative. I fully complement the NTA on that, but what is the broader suite of disability training being made available to drivers as well? For example, if someone has cerebral palsy or difficulty balancing on the bus, are drivers trained to wait for 30 seconds or a minute before the bus pulls off, as that person takes their seat and so on?
I ask the witnesses to deal with both those issues; the overall public transport experience and the broader suite of training made available to drivers.
Mr. Hugh Creegan:
On the overall public transport experience, there is a lot more to be done on street-side infrastructure. That is the reality.
It is not within our gift to do a lot of it. We have to work through the local authorities. There are things like bus stop provision. The Deputy possibly heard earlier that we fund the local authorities to increase bus stop and bus shelter provision but then after that, investment is required in footpath connections, which then brings up issues of lighting in rural areas and crossing are needed. There is a lot to do. We do have a bus stop team within the NTA and it works with the local authority teams. We are gradually improving it but I accept entirely that there is a lot to be done in that area.
On disability training, others know it better than me but my understanding is that that type of knowledge is imparted as part of the training.
Mr. Allen Parker:
If I can just pick up on that, for drivers there is quite extensive training in that area, including our access building manager even bringing in various user groups to meet the drivers and go through the process of boarding buses. It is a lot of work. It is about raising awareness and making sure everyone is fully aware to ensure our services are as inclusive as possible. There is undoubtedly always more to do but in the last couple of years we have significantly increased training and awareness throughout the driver group.
Mr. David Conway:
Indeed, it is an area we are starting to focus on quite a lot as well. To give an example, only recently, we led a delegation into The WayFinding Centre so that we, and some of our drivers, could experience first-hand some of the challenges that different people with different disabilities have. That knowledge has then been brought back and imparted throughout our organisations and to the end user as we deliver services.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I have four minutes left. That is either three minutes for Deputy O'Hara or if he wants to give Deputy Gould one of his minutes, two minutes each.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I will share time with Deputy Gould.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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I will briefly go back to Athenry and the 425A because the decision has been made there to reroute that bus through Athenry rather than having a stand-alone service between Athenry and Galway city. That will obviously cause some frustration for people who will face longer journey times as a result. Will the witnesses talk a bit about why that decision was made and what has prevented a stand-alone service from being put in place? Is funding the main challenge there?
Mr. Conor O'Donovan:
When we reviewed that particular area and when the licensed operator pulled out, we looked at various different options. We try to get value for money in what we are trying to do. For that particular service, the 425A, as part of Connecting Ireland we significantly increased the frequency of that bus in 2024, I think. It is a lot more frequent than it was. Certainly, when we are looking at these, we would look to see if we can reroute a bus route. There is a lot of demand in Athenry. Regarding that particular example, currently four buses per day per direction, Monday to Sunday, operate on that route. By bringing the route through Athenry, we can potentially increase the frequency of that as more people use it. It means that the whole corridor could potentially-----
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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Initially, will it be running four times per day?
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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When Mr. O'Donovan talks about value for money, I assume that means it is just funding constraints that have made this necessary.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Mr. O'Donovan can answer that just very quickly.
Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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If the funding had been there to do it-----
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Gould for his two minutes. I am sorry the time is short.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I have only one question for Bus Éireann. I have sent Bus Éireann at least a dozen emails, I put in four parliamentary questions and I have made dozens of phone calls. I am a TD for Cork North Central and the way in which my constituents and I have been treated is absolutely disgraceful. We have children going to special schools who have had no bus service. Do you know how they are finding out? I have to ring the parents every Monday morning and every Friday to see whether Bus Éireann been on to them. No one can contact Bus Éireann. I am asking now for a dedicated line for TDs where I can pick up the phone and have someone in there on the phone. I have children with really serious special needs, additional needs and disabilities and they had no school for six weeks and no answers from anyone. No one has been picking up the phone. It is unbelievable. I have raised it with the Minister. I have raised it on the floor of the Dáil. I am here now today and I am looking for a commitment, not only for the TDs but for parents with children with special and additional needs, that Bus Éireann would have someone they can contact. The thing about it is, I put in a different question last week and got an answer within three days. This was on something that was unrelated to school transport for children attending special schools. Can someone explain that to me please?
Mr. Stephen Kent:
I apologise if something like that happened. I only became aware of it myself a couple of days ago in preparation for today because I saw that correspondence came in from the Deputy's office. First, we will make ourselves available to meet the Deputy, no problem, but what I understand is that it was to do with the emails. We have one dedicated email address for reps of buseireann.ie, for all school transport queries and any of the queries come in through there. Then we have another email address where the road passenger queries typically come in. I suspect something has happened here and the queries the Deputy had on the school transport were not picked up. I know he has asked for a meeting. I think we have gone back to his office to see if we can get a day with him. He was looking for Friday and we are constrained for Friday but if we could meet him on Monday or Tuesday we will work and engage with him directly on that.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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That seems to have been a channel-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will finish with this.
Bus Éireann was preparing for today's meeting and that is how this came up. I have raised this on the floor of the Dáil. I put four parliamentary questions to the Minister. What about the people who did not contact me? What about those parents and those children? It is funny the number of kids who have got school transport in the last week. Is it linked to Bus Éireann appearing before the committee today? I could not get an answer for six weeks. However, we will arrange that meeting. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry for cutting that conversation short.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate the meeting's time.
Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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I am constrained by time. I will bring today's meeting to a conclusion. On behalf of the members and on my own behalf as Chair, I thank all our witnesses for their contributions today. Reflecting on my notes, what is clear from the discussion and the engagement today is that rural bus transport is still evolving. Many challenges remain, particularly around service provision, service reliability, recruitment, long-term sustainability and equity between public and private providers. The committee will reflect on today's meeting and on the evidence heard and may make specific recommendations to the Minister. Ultimately, our goal is that people in rural Ireland enjoy the same right to mobility and opportunity as those in our cities. We touched on the issue of accessibility and I want to make that appeal. It is very important to me that accessibility is build into the DNA of every route, timetable and vehicle. I urge the NTA, Local Link, Bus Éireann and the CTTC to put people with disabilities, whether those disabilities are visible or hidden, at the very centre of their planning, not on the margins. When it comes to transport, it needs to work for everybody. When it works for everybody, it truly serves the public good. I thank everybody. The meeting stands adjourned until 9.30 a.m. on 22 October, when the committee will meet in public session.