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

One thing that has become absolutely clear during the current Bus Éireann dispute is that the Government does not have a transport policy. While the transport portfolio has been held by various high-profile Ministers over the last six years, the Government's only strategy is to try to get through the latest crisis. There is no sense that there is a policy on what level or quality of public transport services should be available or what the State subvention levels should be. Each of the public transport companies is being defined by what it can do without going bankrupt, rather than working to implement an overall vision for access and quality. If we had that policy framework in place, we may have never seen this Bus Éireann strike. The workers have gone through an awful lot of sacrifices and have lost a lot over the last four weeks. Belatedly, the Minister, Deputy Ross, has said he will convene a forum and that the free travel scheme and the public service obligation will be applied differently. It is past time for the Government and the Minister to produce a formal statement of Government objectives and resources with regard to public transport provision in Ireland. The overriding feeling of people on the ground is that had this dispute been in Dublin, it would have been resolved a long time ago. We need to be very careful that we are not going down the road of a low-wage public sector economy. That would be detrimental overall to society and to the value of public sector interventions.

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