Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I understand the Morton's Coaches initiative has more or less collapsed and I know the Railway Procurement Agency had difficulties in recruiting someone to provide the schemes as envisaged. However, the main difficulty is the obstruction being provided by the State public transport companies which do not wish to participate or co-operate in any way with either other State operators, such as Luas, or private operators. It is unacceptable that they should hold the public to ransom because, effectively, they are performing the function of the Government.

The Minister must step in and the only way to deal with this is to put in place a regulator who will knock heads together and insist on how these bodies should perform. The last person to be considered in this regard is the consumer. While the providers are being looked after, the poor hapless people who try to commute cannot get any kind of integrated ticketing system.

Some €16 million has already been spent on this project already and we are still without a system.

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