Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The fiasco at Dublin Airport has dominated this debate today, but not by the Minister. There is no doubt that there is a significant problem with mismanagement at the airport. I wish we had more time to deal with that issue in its own right. We will need to come back to it at some point but I hope the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications will have an opportunity to go through the issues in considerable detail tomorrow.

I want to focus on the issue of bus transport. I have been an advocate and an active campaigner for better public transport for decades. I am not against changes to the bus network or to how buses are run and organised and it is important to say that at the outset. BusConnects has nine spines, two of which have been rolled out. The Howth one seemed to work very well. There were changes in the numbers but the overall service did not change an awful lot. There have been substantial changes in the sea spine and there are significant problems with it. It is working well in some respects but not in others. Myself, my colleague, Councillor Nuala Killeen, and some other party members conducted a survey in which more than 1,200 people took part, either online or in face-to-face settings. In the face-to-face settings a very large number of people said they would not take part because the bus service no longer met their needs.

If one listens to the traffic reports on the radio, every day north Kildare is featured. We must have a bus and train service that works but there are significant problems. The NTA is very slow to make changes. I will give a quick run down of some of the issues people mentioned in the survey. Common issues were morning buses not turning up and less frequent services than previously. The No. 52 bus is scheduled to run once an hour but frequently does not turn up, both ways. People reported a high rate of empty buses. Some buses run every half an hour and on one particular route, a taxi would be an over-supply. A double decker bus is running from 4.30 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. and is practically empty when there are other routes where demand is not being met. This is a diversion from a direct service. The NTA is not managing the feedback. In fact, my office has become the complaints department. People do not feel safe at bus stops. Very often they are alighting from feeder buses in unlit areas and can be waiting for up to half an hour for the bus to arrive. There is a mismatch between the times the buses arrive. Very often the buses arrive full and an awful lot do not show up at all. I have never come across such a number of no-shows and it is not exclusively on Bus Connects. As we roll out those spines, we really have to get to grips with the problems in each before rolling out the next one. Otherwise, the same pattern will emerge.

We were told by people who want to use the bus every day and who would be very happy to do so that they cannot because of the amount of no-shows. They cannot be sure if they go that they can get back. This is a problem on the services that were privatised and awarded to Go Ahead as well as on Dublin Bus services. Frequently the No. 126 to Naas is cancelled after 7 p.m. The No. 120 bus has become a joke, particularly in the mornings. People told us that they had to take a day's leave because the bus simply did not turn up. These are buses that would ordinarily be full. These are not buses that just a small number of people are using. People are being left behind frequently. The NTA has told us that it is aware of this and is monitoring it. Either it can provide a service or it cannot.

If one makes a criticism, one has the public transport lobby on top of one saying that one should not be criticising changes but the reality is that some of those changes were not good. It was well flagged in advance that some of the changes would be problematic and would not meet the needs of the public. One thing that we did not anticipate, even when there was a service advertised, is the number of no-shows. They have become a real problem on both Dublin Bus and Go Ahead services. It is all very well to have reduced fares - that was a good initiative - but they are no good if people end up having to use taxis. I am coming across that frequently and then it becomes uneconomic to use public transport. There are very significant problems and I do not feel we are being heard. Kildare County Council is having a special meeting with the NTA to discuss the no-shows on the No. 126 and No. 120 service.

This is the kind of public pressure that is coming on in relation to delivering a public transport service. It has to be reliable. If it is not reliable, people will use it once and then give up if they have an alternative.

I cannot impress enough on the Minister of State that unless the various spines are rolled out in a way that works for people, and unless he gets that right and gets feedback from people, this will not work. The same problems are emerging for people in Lucan as are emerging in north Kildare. I ask the Minister of State to take particular note of this and to get on to the National Transport Authority to make the service work for people. These people are being told they are to be provided with a service. We will not have a sustainable transport solution if people feel that the service is unreliable.

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