Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for the update. I welcome in particular the public transport safety working group because all the important players are around the table with the aim of ensuring the safety of passengers. The NTA does its own public transport passenger security reports. I understand that it surveys users. Although the general day-to-day experience is very good, almost half of public transport users in 2024 claimed they felt unsafe at least once on public transport. It is just not good enough that 42% of bus users and 44% of DART users feel unsafe in the evening. Those statistics will not put us in a position whereby we can encourage people to change their mode of transport and use public transport.

The Minister of State mentioned the commitment in the programme for Government, which is very welcome. I appreciate that it will take time, but the sooner we can see the legislation coming through the Dáil to establish the force, the better. People will have confidence once they see those measures coming through. The Dublin city task force also made it clear that the visibility of policing and security in the city centre is so important in order to have confidence in Dublin city. Public transport - buses, DART and Luas services - coming in and out of the city safely and securely at all times is a big part of that.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. I look forward to hearing from him about the personnel deployed by the operators on the northside. As he says in his response, it is a matter for the operators, but there is a question mark as to why the southside's services are manned but the northside's services are not.

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