Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

In recent years, private bus operators have shown a much stronger interest in the provision of bus services and are now well established in parts of the national bus market. They compete with Bus Éireann on most of the major national routes in and out of Dublin and provide some limited services within the Dublin metropolitan area. The provision of public bus services on specific routes or to service particular areas is an operational matter that must be determined by the State bus companies or by private bus operators.

The Road Transport Act 1932 provides the statutory basis for regulating the provision of public bus services by private bus operators. Under that Act, it is open to such operators to submit proposals to my Department for licences for the provision of bus services. Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are not subject to the 1932 Act. However, they are obliged to notify my Department with regard to the initiation or alteration of a bus service and they must obtain my specific consent under section 25 of the Transport Act 1958 where a proposed new service or an alteration to an existing service would give rise to competition with a service licensed under the 1932 Act.

In January 2009 the Government approved the general scheme of the public transport regulation Bill, which contains proposals for a new bus licensing regime for all commercial services. This new regime will replace that provided for under the Road Transport Act 1932 and the provisions of the Transport Act 1958 which relate to the provision of bus services by the State bus companies. In accordance with the programme for Government commitment, the proposed licensing regime will provide a level playing field for all bus market participants.

The general scheme of the Bill also contains proposals for extending nationally the contractual arrangements for the procurement of bus and rail services established in the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008 in respect of the greater Dublin area. That Act provides that future growth in the market for subvented bus services will be addressed by public service contracts entered into following open tendering processes.

The Bill will assign responsibility to the Dublin Transport Authority, DTA, for bus route licensing and the award of public service contracts nationwide. Given its proposed national responsibility in respect of commercial bus licensing, bus and rail subvention and also the regulation of small public service vehicles, the Bill will also provide for the renaming of the DTA as the national transport authority. In the light of Government approval of the general scheme to which I refer, the draft public transport regulation Bill has been prepared and circulated to Departments for observations. When the latter are received, it is my intention to seek Government approval for the publication of the Bill at the earliest opportunity.

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