Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. I will be raising the issues they have raised with the Minister. I want to reassure them that the NTA is engaging regularly with Go-Ahead Ireland and other public transport operators in regard to any service provision issues on the PSO network, and the NTA is providing regular updates to the Department of Transport in regard to these issues. I can also confirm that, as part of the NTA’s contractual performance monitoring system with operators, issues of poor reliability and punctuality performance can result in financial penalties for those operators. As the Deputies referenced, the NTA formally administers sanctions and penalties. The NTA also formally meets with Go-Ahead on a weekly basis to review performance-associated customer feedback and driver recovery plans, and it will continue to closely monitor the situation.

In respect of the specific issues being experienced regarding service reliability, the NTA has advised that it has raised these with Go-Ahead Ireland and will continue to monitor and engage closely with the operator in an effort to improve the situation. As Deputies have noted, 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. Furthermore, public transport operators are forecasting improvements in reliability in the coming months. This will depend on successful recruitment and retention of critical staff, in particular drivers. It is hoped that this will help to resolve the current reliability issues being experienced. I will ask the Minister to keep the Deputies updated in regard to the driver shortage.

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