John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Minister for Transport regrets very much the loss of employment and the loss of bus services in the Celbridge area arising from the withdrawal of the Circle Line services. Any application for the introduction of new services to and from Celbridge will be urgently considered by the Department of Transport.

This incident highlights what the Minister has stated since taking up office, that the bus licensing regime must be overhauled. It underlines why the Minister initiated and brought the Dublin Transposition Authority Bill, currently in its final stages, to the Houses of the Oireachtas. The next stage in this reform process is legislation to amend the Road Transport Act 1932 which provides the statutory basis for regulating the provision of public bus services by private bus operators.

In accordance with the legislation, private bus operators apply to the Department for licences to operate scheduled bus passenger services within the State. Dublin Bus is not subject to this licensing system. However, the initiation or alteration of a bus service by the company is subject to compliance with a requirement to give advance notice to the Department and to compliance with the provisions of section 25 of the Transport Act 1958 concerning competition with licensed private operators. It is therefore open to any operator to submit proposals to the Department of Transport concerning the provision of bus services in the Celbridge area.

On 23 December 2002 Mortons Coaches Dublin Limited was issued with a licence to provide a bus passenger service on the Nutgrove-Celbridge-Nutgrove via city centre route. Subsequently, the company applied for a significant increase of services and to operate them on a return basis on this route. On 26 October 2006, the amended licence issued authorising the changes which would operate under the name Circle Line Bus Company, a subsidiary of Mortons Coaches Dublin Limited. The company made a number of complaints to the Department with regard to Dublin Bus services and these complaints have been the subject of ongoing communications between the Department of Transport, Dublin Bus and the company. Dublin Bus had been operating in the Celbridge area prior to the granting of the licences to Mortons Coaches, and Dublin Bus advised the Department that it was conforming to its obligations with regard to its service authorisations.

On 19 June 2008, the Department of Transport was advised that the Circle Line Bus Company was going into voluntary liquidation and that services operating from Celbridge would cease to operate from Friday, 27 June 2008. I will pass on Deputy Stagg's comments to the Minister for Transport, who is unavoidably absent from the House.

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