Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry to hear that the Deputy's train was late this morning and that he, like Deputy Tóibín, had difficulty getting to the Dáil, which may account for some of the reordering of questions we have had to do.

First, as I have mentioned, the performance of all public transport operators is monitored by the NTA as part of the contractual arrangements in place between it and the operators. These contractual arrangements allow for not just the monitoring of performance by the authority and the publication by it of annual performance reports, but importantly, the contracts also allow for the imposition of financial penalties where performance does not meet the required standard. It is the case that operators in the public transport sector are experiencing difficulties with staffing both as a result of Covid-related absences and also difficulties in recruiting new drivers. However, it is also the case that Go-Ahead Ireland is experiencing higher than normal levels of Covid-related staff absences at present resulting in a knock-on effect on service delivery, with some services not operating as scheduled. In addition, last week the company notified the NTA of a cybersecurity alert that resulted in major difficulties in communicating rosters to drivers across the Go-Ahead group internationally, including Ireland, causing a number of additional service cancellations across the Go-Ahead Ireland network, over and above those associated with general driver shortages.

As part of the NTA’s performance monitoring system, poor reliability and punctuality performance results in financial penalties. I am informed that these matters will be discussed between the NTA and Go-Ahead Ireland at their forthcoming quarterly review meeting. As I said in reply to Deputy O'Rourke earlier, the Deputy may wish to be aware that penalties were previously applied to Go-Ahead Ireland for quarter 4 of 2021 and quarter 1 of 2022, amounting to €266,968 and €209,188, respectively. The NTA formally meets Go-Ahead Ireland on a weekly basis to review performance, associated customer feedback and driver recovery plans, and will continue to monitor and engage closely with the operator.

See this speech in context