Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister must gain an appreciation of the concern in rural Ireland about the Bus Éireann crisis. My constituency of County Limerick is predominantly rural and people rely on the public transport service to travel to Limerick city for hospital appointments, their day-to-day business or to work. Equally, they rely on it to get to the key county towns of Abbeyfeale, Newcastlewest, Rathkeale, Kilmallock and Cappamore. If we do not resolve this crisis and avoid the insolvency of the company, the bus service may go. As such, we have to see the Minister as shareholder representative step up to the plate. The public must be reassured. It is incumbent on the Minister to tell the public that this will be sorted out. In the past few years, in particular under Fine Gael and the Labour Party, we saw the closure of post offices, Garda stations, public health clinics and banks, as well as the consolidation of services into the larger towns and cities. If we take away the public transport service on which people rely, we will hugely discommode the people I represent. As such, it is incumbent on the Minister and the Government to sort this out.

In sorting out the problem, the workers cannot be asked to bail the company out. I listened intently to what was said at the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport last week when the acting CEO of Bus Éireann detailed that the workers accounted for 40% of the cost base of the company. It is not tenable or feasible for the workers to be stripped of more salary. We have a race to the bottom in this country in respect of terms and conditions and rates of pay. It is not sustainable that the workforce be asked by virtue of salary cuts or reductions in allowances or premium overtime to bail out the company. There are many other areas which could be looked at, including insurance costs, route costs and reform of the National Transport Authority. Many areas where there could be savings have been outlined, but the workers must be protected in terms of their salaries and terms and conditions.

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