Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is no question here of a bigger battle, an ideology or whatever. All we want is that passengers will not be inconvenienced and that drivers, who are already on very modest pay and conditions, who have to work weekends, rest days and public holidays, will not be more seriously damaged by this. The Minister is the person in charge. What is he going to do about it? Is he going to go back to the industrial relations machinery or try to use some other methodology to have this matter resolved?

I refer to Bus Éireann management. A constant complaint I hear from workers is that senior management has not taken its share of the burden. Is this the case? Would the Minister know if it was the case? Is there not a question to answer in that regard? Does senior management not also have a significant responsibility to offer new and innovative alternatives to what is being proposed?

The Minister spoke at length about public service obligations, PSO, and what managers in Bus Éireann could and could not do. The reality is that the Minister has slashed the public service obligation support for this company. I remember listening to him speak during the previous Dáil. He has no time for public sector companies and wanted to privatise this one. In the United Kingdom, when the national bus service was privatised, the result was an oligopoly of private operators. That is what the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, wants.

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