Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after "reduce the cost of travel for commuters currently excluded": "— public transport fares to be abolished from the start of 2023, including for commercial bus and rail operators, and investment to ensure free public transport is also fast and frequent".

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. It is good to have the opportunity to talk about this hugely important issue. It is evident, from the contributions of all of the Deputies who have spoken, that we have a problem with the delivery of public transport. People do not make up these stories and moan about the NTA, the BusConnects or the trains just for the sake of it. These are real issues for the people that we represent in our constituencies. The first issue that I want to address from the motion is access and disability access. As has been said by many here, it is a hugely important issue. We have seen many people facing barriers to access to public transport, including broken lifts at DART stations, limited wheelchair spaces on buses, trains, and on the DART and the Luas, and the requirement to give 24 hours' notice before a journey in order for a ramp to be put in place. These are real live issues for people who struggle at the best of times with their mobility. I must congratulate the Access for All campaigners, many of whom I know. They are people with disabilities and the parents of people with disabilities, who are doing their utmost to shine a light on this very important issue.

The second issue I wish to raise, which is not really explicitly mentioned in the motion but is hinted at, and has been hinted at throughout the debate, is the role of the NTA itself. I worked for Dublin Bus. I remember that there were constant attempts by the State and the governments of the day to privatise the public transport system. It was a mantra of Fine Gael, in particular. It really wanted to see privatisation in public transport. It was met with huge resistance, mainly from workers like me and the good strong trade unions that we had. The NTA was brought in specifically to privatise public transport. That is the only role it has ever played. It had an elaborate structure of competitive tendering, just like we have for offshore energy for renewables, for our hospitals and for everything we do. It is a very neo-liberal idea that the only way we can deliver services is by privatising some of them and looking for the lowest tenderer. When you get the lowest tenderer, you get a company like Go-Ahead, a British company that is renowned over there for treating and paying its workers poorly. If the NTA had only done its research, it would have found that out. Stories have been told all around this Chamber today about what is wrong with Go-Ahead. There is a lot wrong with the NTA. What it has done with BusConnects is very interesting. From the time BusConnects was announced, as a councillor, along with other People Before Profit councillors, I engaged very strongly with the organisation. BusConnects will confirm that we had the representatives driven mad. We went to all the public consultations, met with representatives and had Zoom conferences with them. They produced very elaborate and beautiful documents, maps and files that could be plugged into a computer. There were interactive maps that showed us how BusConnects would work. I would say that millions of euro were spent on that. In fact, I think I put in a parliamentary question on the millions of euro that were spent on just planning the BusConnects network. Now that we have it, I welcome 24-hour transport and many of the spines that bring more frequency on the principal routes, for example, from west Dublin into the city. That is all very good.

However, those routes bypass large working class areas such as lower Ballyfermot. For years, the No. 79 bus would pass through the area frequently, every 15 to 20 minutes, picking up mothers, babies, people in wheelchairs, grannies and all sorts of people who needed the service. Those are genuine working class people who depend on public transport because they do not have the option of using cars and do not have sufficient mobility to walk for 15 minutes to the main road to catch the G1 or G2 buses. This new route is wrecking some of their lives. I have heard reports of women who have struggled to make it into work on time because of the bottleneck created by the No. 60 route which replaced the No. 79. They are delayed in waiting for the bus to come and also by the bottleneck that is created in Kilmainham, which adds 45 or 50 minutes to the journey. Many of those women are arriving into work so late that their wages are being docked. It is unacceptable. I would like the Ministers and those sitting on the Government benches to provide instruction to the National Transport Authority to the effect that where the system is not working, it must try to fix it. Trying to fix it means consulting local people and their representatives, including Deputies. The NTA must try to fix the problems and it must listen.

When I worked in Dublin Bus, workers were consulted regularly about how the routes should work. We knew what time the factories and schools emptied. We knew what time the women came out to go into town and clean the offices. We knew when old folks would need buses to get to hospitals. There is no longer any consultation with local people on these issues. There is a plan in the heads of these people, a layer of whom come to those Zoom meetings. Loads of different people attend. They are well-paid experts who can tell us about this route which runs however many kilometres. The talk about this, that and the other, and all the computerised technology they have. However, delivering a proper transport service requires listening to local people.

I have moved the People Before Profit amendment to provide for free public transport. For years, People Before Profit has championed the idea of free frequent public transport. I hope Sinn Féin will accept our amendment and vote with us on it because free public transport is not only people asking for more stuff for free, as some neoliberals would say. They would say it is just the socialists again for whom everything must be free and ask who will pay for it. Free public transport is a modern, global and well caught-on concept. Where it has been introduced, the intention is to reduce emissions, improve air quality and get cars off the road. It is a crucial tool for reducing CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. We must think long and hard about such a measure. We are pushing for that. It would not cost a fortune to introduce. We have priced it and included it in our alternative budget several times. To introduce it now for the current level of transport would require an additional amount of approximately €600 million in the budget. Of course, transport must be more frequent, timely and accessible. It must be democratised in consultation with local communities and responsive to their needs. It should not only be a matter for what is in the heads of bureaucrats with good jobs in the NTA or Transport for Ireland. There is a problem here and I hope the Minister acknowledges that.

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