Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I move amendment No.37:

In page 11, line 4, after "taken" to insert "and/or geographical area covered".

This amendment adds "geographical area covered" to the route to be taken in the section dealing with the attachment of conditions for licences. I thought of this in respect of the local transport network. We should think about networks as well as routes. I hope we get good news in the transport section of the budget on 9 December and that the axe will not be struck on the rural transport network. Many people around the country are counting on the Minister to make sure this does not happen in Cabinet and to ensure that the network survives. The amendment tries to enable the development of flexible and demand responsive services.

Amendment No. 38 deals with the standards for licences. Section 13(i) refers to the "minimum" accessibility standards, and I wondered why the Minister did not include the highest of standards, given the battle we have had over the years for accessibility for citizens with disability. I urge the Minister to reconsider this one last time, as we had a long discussion about it on Committee Stage.

In amendment No. 39, I wanted to add the following to the section 13:

"(j) compliance with all health and safety, labour and employment legislation, regulations and standards including those on salary and work conditions,".

We have had two votes on this, which the Minister has not been able to support. This is the last chance he has to put into the section dealing with conditions for licences a key condition related to health and safety, labour and employment legislation, regulations and standards, including those on salary and work conditions. He has stated that he will bring another Bill before us dealing with commercial transport operators. I have been waiting for the two and a half years of the lifetime of this Dáil for this Bill, even though it was on the first clár when the Government was formed. We are still waiting. My predecessor as spokesperson for transport, Deputy Shortall, waited four or five years for the legislation to be brought before the House. The Minister's statement is aspirational rather than reality politics. I would like the Minister to reconsider this one last time.

I would like to be able to support the basic principle of the development of our transport network under EU Regulation 1320 of 2007. However, on these critical issues which relate to worker conditions and salaries, I am precluded from doing so as the Minister is not prepared to come the extra mile with us. In two votes this evening, slim margins of four and three in the House decided that we would not have references to worker protections in this Bill. There are clearly people in the Minister's party who have grave problems with not accepting this amendment and the earlier amendments.

In amendment No. 40, I want to add "the inclusion of Automatic Vehicle Location or similar technology to support Real Time Passenger Information and the general management of the public transport network" to section 13. In the 1989 general election, when I first stood for my party, people spoke at the time about integrated transport and real time information, so that one could stand at the bus stop on the quays and see the time of the arrival of the next bus. It has taken us 20 years to get closer to that reality. We are asking that AVL, real time information and all the other important modern transport infrastructure would be included as a condition for granting the licence.

Amendment No. 41 calls for minimum notice periods for services to be revoked. The public would not be left in the lurch and all operators — public or private — would have to adhere to such notice periods on every route. That is a fair requirement. Amendment No. 42 calls for minimum notice periods for amendments to services and requirements for public consultation. The Minister has set himself against widespread consultation before any service is changed. If any route is being changed, the commuter should be consulted and there should be a minimum notice period for this, so that people would not just find out at the last minute that the bus serving the road on which they live has disappeared.

Amendment No. 43 calls for the provision and maintenance of essential bus infrastructure for all users and modern bus fleets, as indicated in regulation by the national transport authority. This means that the authority would insist on certain basic standards. When he was Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government many years ago, I used to question him about the safety features on vehicles, which was within his Department's remit at that time. I used to raise issues like the lighting system, the fact that vehicles are legally imported into the country without a rear windscreen wiper. One might meet vehicles on a rainy night that had peculiar, dazzling lights. The transport regulator would have a view on that in respect of buses. It should require the highest standards before granting a licence.

There are two basic points in these amendments. They are similar to the amendments I tabled to the section on provisions and they require the best possible standards and wages for workers, and the best possible fleets and safety features for commuters.

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