John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, for attending. I am always grateful when he is here and in fairness to him he always makes an effort to respond to Topical Issue matters. The Minister is very familiar with this issue. As I speak, trade union representatives are on national radio again, having raised this issue on national radio this morning. I and one of my councillor colleagues are members of the Luas-Dublin Bus forum in Tallaght. There have been some incidents recently in which bus services have been withdrawn. This occurs in other parts of Dublin as well, thankfully not too frequently, but often enough to cause some degree of concern to people.

What we hear at the Luas-Dublin Bus forum, and what is often raised in the newspapers, are dramatic incidents culminating in serious assault that have occurred on Iarnród Éireann services several times. I am equally concerned by the low grade menacing level of anti-social behaviour on all public transport. A person may be sitting upstairs on the bus and someone who is drunk or not even drunk, or worse, someone on drugs, becomes aggressive. There is no provision for Luas security personnel to stop, search and arrest. They can simply escort someone off the tram. Since before 2016 Fianna Fáil has been calling for a dedicated public transport police to ensure, at a minimum, that random checks are carried out so that members of the public can take a journey on public transport, which we are encouraging them to use, in the knowledge that a random check may take place on any public transport service to dissuade anti-social behaviour.

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