Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Vital bus routes and public transport services should not only run if a private company can make a profit out of them. A private company, Aircoach, has just announced that it is going to cut several routes, including one that goes through my area. The cut means there will no longer be a route going from Shankill, Ballybrack and Loughlinstown to Dublin Airport. Bus drivers in my area are telling me that the No. 7 route is possibly to be handed over to Go-Ahead Ireland. That is a company that made losses last year and is failing to fulfil its contract to provide routes all over the place. Incredibly, it will be rewarded with one of the best routes that Dublin Bus has. This stuff has to stop. Privatisation of public transport is a failure. We need to put in place a service to the airport because it is a necessary public good. Similarly, we should not be privatising more Dublin Bus routes.

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