Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I welcome Fine Gael's motion, the thrust of which is to seek accountability and transparency. If we are to respond in detail to the motion, we must address the fundamental issue of seeking greater accountability to the State and transparency in all aspects and not just in semi-State companies. I firmly believe in the principles of transparency and I applaud the work done by Transparency International in trying to open up more bodies, in particular public bodies, to scrutiny. We need to go much further. The freedom of information legislation, much of which goes back to former Deputy Eithne Fitzgerald of the Labour Party, is very commendable and I applaud her for introducing it to the House ten or 15 years ago. We should not neglect the principles put in place by that Government.

I want to focus on some of the figures mentioned in the motion and the purposes to which they are put. The €6.23 billion invested in CIE since 1997 is a mix of capital payments to fund transport infrastructure and current payments to meet the current cost needs of Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Irish Rail for public service obligation, PSO, route subvention, or more accurately, to meet the shortfall between the revenue take by each company and their total expenditure. Based on the previous four years, this works out at a current to capital ratio of approximately 45% to 50%.

The subsidy the Government gives to Dublin Bus has increased by 34% since 2002 but is low in comparison to other European cities. In 2007, the PSO payment was 29% of total revenue compared to 62% in Amsterdam, 68% in Brussels and 38% in London. Part of the thrust of the motion is to deal with elements of value for money for the taxpayer.

With regard to the subvention that the Government gives CIE to meet the shortfall in providing public transport services, the company actually performs. The 2006 Booz Allen Hamilton report found that with regard to value for money for the subvention all three companies had performed well overall. It found with regard to value for money in Iarnród Éireann that a large number of statistics are produced and generally show improvements in efficiency levels; the cost per unit of fleet, per passenger and per passenger kilometre are reducing; and that subvention increased by 16.6% in real terms and by 1.2% per passenger.

With regard to value for money in Bus Éireann, it found that productivity and cost efficiency statistics generally show improvements in terms of kilometres per driver, operating costs per vehicle, and that customer journeys per bus and per kilometre have decreased due to traffic congestion. I throw down the gauntlet to Fine Gael and ask what it is doing about traffic congestion, as its only real ideology in recent times has been to limit the efficacy of the bus gate in Dublin city? I understand businesses are suffering but I would not place their problems at the foot of improving bus transit through the city centre. To return to the report on value for money in Bus Éireann, subvention decreased by 4.9% in real terms and by 13.7% per passenger.

For Dublin Bus, revenue per kilometre fell as did revenue per driver. Subvention increased by 11.3% in real terms and at a slower rate per passenger. Among the recommendations in the report was to strengthen the terms of the memoranda of understanding between the Government and the companies on the basis that taxpayers' money is paid to provide for better accountability of funding and to link performance levies to moneys paid. While these memoranda have been put in place, they have not been sufficiently clear in linking of where taxpayers' moneys go into the subvention or on what criteria they need to be assessed. We must shine a torch into what is a fairly dark hole and give much more clarity to the taxpayer. That will benefit the public transport companies and the Minister in his work.

An important function of the new national transport authority will be setting the terms of public service contracts so that a clearer link can be drawn between the money the Government gives to CIE and the services provided in return. Criteria set out under the public service contracts will include the places and routes to be served by the transport operator, service standards and frequency, accessibility requirements and emissions standards for pollutants and noise. These contracts will be a better yardstick for determining how the subventions are allocated and, ultimately, whether companies provide a good service to commuters.

I challenge the Labour Party and Fine Gael to consider the significant differences that exist between them in regard to funding public transport. As far as I can see, Fine Gael is taking a laissez faire approach in letting market competition determine the type of services to be provided. The Labour Party, however, sees the State as the provider of public transport services. The best solution is probably closer to the latter model. The data shows that the UK experience of bundling services in London and a free-for-all in other cities did not serve the best interests of commuters. I would hate to think that we would allow the cherry-picking of profitable routes in Dublin.

The best body to determine what new routes need to be put in place is the Dublin Transport Authority. The views of public transport users should also be sought. I am cautiously optimistic that the DTA will provide transparent data because that is the way the world is going. I recently used a Google Maps function which relies on public transport data to show how well certain places are served by public transport.

We are still living in the 1930s when it comes to providing clear information about services in Ireland. Yet again, I must rant about the way Dublin Bus puts on its bus stops information about when a bus was supposed to have left the terminal. This is useless to the passenger and I look forward to being able to consult real time passenger information at bus stops, in buses and on one's mobile telephone. It is not rocket science; it involves simple computer technology which was developed for rural towns in Westphalia 25 years ago. It is about time we delivered the goods for the people of our cities and towns. Public transport will be used if people feel confident about its delivery, punctuality and accessibility.

I commend Fine Gael on seeking further transparency but I worry about the party's ideological weakness in seeing the market as the best provider of services. The State can provide top class public transport services by demanding transparency and proper information. The Comptroller and Auditor General or the Committee of Public Accounts should not be left with the responsibility of finding out what happened in our public transport companies one, three or five years ago. We need to shine more light on the subject and, while the Fine Gael motion goes a distance towards that objective, the public will benefit from even more transparency. The Public Transport Regulation Bill 2009 will greatly assist us in this task.

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