Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I regret it is not the Minister for Transport who I am addressing and that it is to be dealt with by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, as I know transport is not part of his departmental brief. In one sense, however, it is very positive because I know he is a regular visitor to Tramore and he knows the lay of the land in the south east as well as anybody in this House.

I want to share with the Minister of State some of the Bus Éireann services that were disrupted in the south east, out of Waterford in particular, on just one day, the Sunday of last week. These details are taken from the Bus Éireann website. On route 2, the 5 p.m. service from Wexford to Dublin Airport was cancelled along with the return service at 9 p.m. On the 4-X4 route, the 9 a.m. service from Waterford to Dublin Airport was cancelled along with the return at 1.15 p.m. The 4.30 p.m. service from New Ross to Dublin was cancelled along with its return service. Five services on route 40 were cancelled along the Cork, Waterford, Wexford and Rosslare route and four of the services along the 360 route between Waterford and Tramore were officially cancelled as well, according to the website, although I am led to believe that another six services in each direction were also cancelled during the course of the day. As the Minister of State may remember, this was on one of the best days of the year so far, when we could expect passenger numbers between Waterford and Tramore to be especially high, and at a time when the buses are running at a limited capacity because of Covid restrictions.

The upshot of these cancellations is that many passengers were left high and dry, either waiting for a bus that was not coming or having been told that the service was at capacity and that they could not get on. Moreover, and this particularly applies to the longer intercity Expressway routes, people just were not informed in time to make alternative plans. People were left feeling angry and let down and they struggled to find an alternative way to travel. I know of one case in particular where the last intercity service was cancelled and the person had to sleep out for the night, having no alternative.

This is not an isolated incident and these cancellations are happening on an ongoing basis. It is leading to a situation where people feel they cannot rely on the public transport service operating out of Waterford.

Will the Minister of State cast any light on the situation? Is the problem exclusive to or particularly pronounced in Waterford? Are there particular issues with staffing in Waterford? An additional city service has been laid on to provide transport to the mass vaccination centre in the Waterford Institute of Technology Arena. Has that route been adequately resourced or is that impacting the provision of other services? How stand the relationships between management and drivers at the Waterford depot? Are there difficulties that the Department can get involved in to help to resolve. The Minister of State knows as well as anybody how hard we fought in programme for Government negotiations so that State spending would go two to one in favour of public transport over road projects. Moving people away from private vehicles to public transport is a key action to decarbonise our transport sector and meet climate targets. For people to make that choice, public transport has to be comfortable, affordable and reliable. That does not seem to be the case in Waterford at the moment. Will the Minister of State outline whether the Department is aware of these issues and what steps it is taking to remedy the problem?

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