Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Government is certainly not abandoning its commitment to provide additional buses under the national development plan. Funding for over 300 new buses has been made available in the last five years, and there are now over 1,000 buses in the service of Dublin Bus. We are continuing to invest in Dublin Bus, whose annual subvention is now €60 million.

The issue, as has been pointed out by Dublin Bus management, is that the success of Luas has taken many people out of cars but also buses. That has meant that there are 30 or more buses available for use elsewhere in the city, according to Dublin Bus figures, as the management told me yesterday. It had previously stated that publicly. Spare capacity is likely to increase when the very substantial upgrade to the capacity of the DART is complete. Such spare capacity should of course be used before any decision is made on where the new buses are to go.

Dublin Bus has applied for funding for 40 additional buses, and the potential impact on demand for buses of the arrival of Luas was discussed with the company. It has not put in any additional funding for 2005; its figure was for last year. The Department of Transport asked the Dublin Transportation Office some time ago to carry out a bus network review, which will highlight the additional investment required for the bus fleet. Ministers made it clear that when that and certain other reform issues, which are ongoing and on which a great deal of progress has been made, have been cleared, they will be able to deal with the question. The idea that we should add additional buses on to a fleet when agreement has not been reached on the routes of buses not being used is ridiculous. I hope those discussions can be concluded at an early date.

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