Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 57:

In page 15, line 38, to delete "is final and conclusive." and substitute the following:

"may be referred to the Board of the National Transport Authority.".

These amendments relate to appeals to the decision to grant a licence. Within the transport industry there is a feeling that the decision of a deciding officer alone may be unfair and that there should be some other level of appeal besides going directly to the Circuit Court. We are very familiar with the planning process, where there is a decision by a local authority and people go to An Bord Pleanála if they are unhappy with the decision or we want to put a case for our constituents. The national transport authority, acting as a board, might make a decision on this if somebody felt hard done by at the licensing stage. This would be relevant if people had a genuine case, as putting it to the board would mean a deciding officer would not be the last word on the matter.

We have had many discussions about this over the years with regard to planning and social welfare. When I was the Labour spokesman on social and family affairs, I remember advocating an independent statutory appeals system. I had drafted heads of a Bill in that regard that would keep the systems separate. The Department might argue that this is the case under existing legislation but we felt it should have been ring-fenced because of concerns that constituents would have sometimes.

In this regard we should have another level of appeal in this sector without the need to go to the court system. We met an operator some weeks ago at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Transport who did not seem worried about going into court and going through costly legal procedures. He seemed to feel that while this would happen, he would run the opposition — including Bus Éireann — off the road. We would effectively be left with GoBus, which is a massive multinational operator, as our operator on the Galway to Dublin route.

This is an attempt to have another level of adjudication on a licence, which may be particularly valuable to smaller operators. I speak for such operators, who if this amendment were accepted might not have to go straight to the court system if they were turned down for a licence.

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