Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Neither Dublin Bus nor Bus Éireann is being or will be privatised over the lifetime of this Government. In fact, they will have a guaranteed level of public service funding up to 2019.

The direct award contracts for the provision of public service obligation, PSO, services held by Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann expire later this year. The awarding of subsequent contracts is the statutory responsibility of the National Transport Authority, NTA. In accordance with the decision made by the NTA board in December last on the arrangements for the award of public transport contracts after December 2014, all Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann routes will be included in the new five year direct award contracts which the NTA will enter into with the companies next December. However, the NTA announced that 10% of publicly subvented bus services will only remain within the direct award contracts until the end of 2016, after which they will be operated under separate contracts that will have been competitively tendered. It must be recognised that the tendering decisions announced by the NTA are relatively modest and there will be a long lead-in before they take effect. Furthermore, it is open to the two incumbent companies to compete for any tendered routes and I am confident they will make strong bids.

The NTA considered it to be in the public interest to leave Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann with a scale of operation which remains efficient for each company’s resources and overheads. The NTA has determined that tendering about 10% of the market presents little, if any, risk to Dublin Bus or Bus Éireann’s overall operations while giving the opportunity to test market pricing, offer opportunities to improve efficiency and customer service, as well as the possibility, subject to the outcome of the competition, of bringing new operators into the market, and enabling benchmarking. No service changes will occur as a result of this process as it will still be the State, in the form of the NTA, that will determine the schedules, the frequency, the vehicle types and standards, the fares and the customer service requirements. This is the key message we need to promote.

See this speech in context