Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I welcome the motion and I am glad to have the opportunity to speak about the situation in Bus Éireann this evening but I want to state clearly that despite what the Minister has been putting out, this is not an industrial relations dispute. The unions have made a wage claim. Bus Éireann has pulled out of the Workplace Relations Commission process and it is a matter of choice as to whether one goes into discussions on a pay claim. In the meantime, it has written three letters to its employees stating how it will cut their wages by 25%. That is the current position. We are not in a situation where there is an industrial relations dispute. We are in a situation where the company has issued letters to its employees and has not engaged at all with the unions representing those workers.

In 2009, Bus Éireann had a public subvention of €44.9 million. Today, it is €33.7 million. The company is trying to provide the same service with 25% less funding. We know the Department of Social Protection funding has remained frozen since 2009 even though the level of service has increased. Meanwhile, the Government and its predecessors have paved the way for private operators to come into the market and cherry-pick the most profitable routes serving only large towns and motorways, going directly from point to point and maximising profits.

Bus Éireann, by contrast, has sought to provide for those who need connectivity in more isolated areas. That is particularly the case with users of the free travel pass who are often elderly and amount to as many as one third of Bus Éireann customers. Those citizens will be left on the side of the road by private operators but the Government has penalised Bus Éireann for providing that essential service. Due to insufficient public funding, the company is actually losing money from every extra passenger it takes.

To deal with the crisis the company brought in a new management team under a shroud of secrecy. No one knows how much the previous CEOs or managers got when they were let go. We have Ray Hernan, who is notorious on foot of the anti-union positions he took in Ryanair. Brendan McCarthy, who was in IBEC, went in to do a hatchet job in Irish Ferries when it was being pulled apart at the time. Their solution is to replicate the low-wage private operators, cut terms and conditions for Bus Éireann workers and allow for a race to the bottom.

If the Government is not intent on turning rural transport in Ireland wholesale over to the market and if it wants rural transport to be publicly and properly funded and provided for those who need it, it must take determined action now to secure the future of Dublin Bus. The Minister and the Government must do that as otherwise, they are leaving Bus Éireann and public transport in rural areas in the lap of the markets, which will not work.

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