Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The most obvious question is whether this is the beginning of the privatisation of public transport in the State. The Minister is on record as showing some level of favour towards that particular process. I remind the Minister that during the course of a recent and ongoing dispute between Dublin Bus workers and management, a Labour Party Minister indicated that the announcement by the NTA was "unhelpful", although one might wonder why it would have been unhelpful at the time. Was it that there is an agreement within the Government that it intends to privatise public transport services on a wider scale but it wanted to resolve the issues at Dublin Bus first?

Has the Minister any concerns about the quality of service to be delivered? He is familiar with the privatisation of public transport services in other EU member states that have not gone terribly satisfactorily, from the perspective of either passengers or the states involved, because of cost. Will the Minister address those issues?

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