Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are now in the 12th day of the nationwide Bus Éireann dispute. People are extremely frustrated, annoyed and angry by the lack of activity at Government level to resolve this dispute. The simple refrain across Ireland is that if this dispute was in Dublin, it would have been resolved a long time ago. That is the general sense in regional cities, rural towns and across the countryside and one which we encounter all the time. There is massive disruption. Many businesses are reporting a significant decline in footfall and business activity in the towns and cities affected. Some 2,500 staff are also very worried about their position, notwithstanding the 110,000 people who use Bus Éireann services which are no longer available to them.

We have insisted from the beginning that there are policy dimensions to this issue which the Government refuses to acknowledge. The Minister has stated, for example, that one cannot have cross-subsidisation of the Expressway services from public service obligation, PSO, funding. That is not true.

The NTA can through the reasonable profit mechanism, which is there and which is allowed under EU regulations, facilitate transfers under that facility to the bus companies. It is interesting that under that arrangement Dublin Bus received €4.5 million last year while Bus Éireann received €400,000.

The Dublin-rural issue is evident again when comparing how Dublin Bus is funded under the PSO and how Bus Éireann is funded. Bus Éireann is not getting its fair share and is not getting a reasonable deal. The same applies to free travel. Bus Éireann recoups approximately €4.70 per passenger availing of free travel on the Expressway service while the average fare is €11.74. There has been a significant reduction in the free travel subsidy since 2010. The reasonable profit mechanism might sound complex as a formula but the bottom line is Bus Éireann gets a lower subsidy per passenger than Dublin Bus under the PSO operation as well. Whatever way you look at this, rural and regional Ireland is not getting its fair share. Bus Éireann is an indispensable part of the transport infrastructure of rural Ireland and of the towns and cities outside Dublin. That sense of prioritisation is not manifest in the Government's response to this crisis.

From the outset the company has insisted on preconditions before the unions enter into WRC talks, which is unacceptable. The talks should be without precondition but they should be assisted. Why will the Government not make an intervention on the policy front that would create the background, which would facilitate a resolution of this dispute at the WRC? The Government and the NTA have options open to them if they see fit to use them but so far the Government has been determined to avoid any consideration of legitimate policy issues that could help here.

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