Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am no great champion of Bus Éireann and have been highly critical of the company in the past for the predatory and anti-competitive practices in which it sometimes has engaged. I refer to instances in which private operators that had identified profitable routes had their buses followed around the city by Bus Éireann buses in an attempt to stymie the success of those routes. However, it is important to point out Bus Éireann's role in providing the national transport system for schools. It is an extremely onerous role and no other entity exists at present - I stress at present - that has the corporate capacity or knowledge to provide this service. I will run through Bus Éireann's role in the provision of school transport to illustrate this point. It is responsible for the procurement of and payments in respect of approximately 1,400 private operators that are needed to deliver the services and must ensure that each contractor, driver and vehicle procured meets all relevant tax and legislative compliance criteria, including child protection vetting. It processes every single primary school transport application, liaises with the transport liaison officers in the VECs in respect to post-primary applications and assesses eligibility for pupils across the entire school network. Bus Éireann is involved in the design, constant renewal and revision of the 6,000 routes that are needed to pick up and drop off children each year. It also is responsible for collecting parental contributions centrally and providing an online payment facility. Finally, the company undertakes the day-to-day supervision and monitoring of service performance, standards and safety.

Given the practical issues in which Bus Éireann is involved on a daily basis, I do not consider there to be any opportunity at present for establishing another entity that somehow could take over its role. Effectively, what is in place at present is virtually a model public private partnership in which Bus Éireann oversees the process at a national level, while 85% of the routes are provided by the private sector.

See this speech in context