Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I feel almost moved to tears because I have asked this question year in, year out and nothing seems to change. I have raised the issue of additional capacity for Dublin Bus. We are looking for more buses, not a fanciful interconnector or a metro. Buses are cheap and flexible and can be delivered relatively quickly.

Why is that not happening? Dublin Bus does not have the buses and no one else is allowed to provide the service. There are almost 200 applications on hand, of which 74 are for new licences, in some cases for two years. The Minister has received more applications for licences where the applicant simply wants to enhance the service and the Department will not provide an answer.

There is a major conflict of interest between the Minister as the licensing operator for private operators and as shareholder of CIE. How can the Minister stand over a situation where someone waits over 18 months to get a licence and the very day he or she receives a licence and puts his or her buses on the route Dublin Bus or Bus Éireann appears on the route for the first time? Neither could provide a service until they had some competition.

I ask the Minister to do one of three things and I do not care about the ideology involved. He can give buses to Dublin Bus, give licences to private operators or he can appoint a regulator and let the regulator organise the buses.

People need extra capacity. People, whose children are growing up, are growing old waiting on any kind of bus service. Entire communities were promised by the previous Minister that if houses were built on the basis of sustainable development, buses and trains would follow. None of it has happened. The houses are there, the children are growing old, in some cases there is a second generation, yet no bus has arrived.

It is unforgivable as the public interest is not being served. I do not know whose interest is being served. I cannot believe there is no progress on this matter because the Taoiseach wants to keep the unions happy. I cannot believe the public interest should be dumped to such an extent that this reason is the motivating factor. When will we see some action that will get extra capacity? It can be done quickly and we can put people out of their misery.

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