Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

The transparency around this is there. The operators have to report on service level agreements. When specific issues arise, a lot of the time I see that people will tweet the NTA on X, send emails or whatever. I get text messages regularly, including from my daughter if a bus does not show up when she is travelling to DCU, so I know from my family that this happens from time to time. There can be understandable reasons for this. We need to build up the human resources within each of the operators. Go-Ahead Ireland has very specific issues relating to staffing. What I was not happy about at the time - and it was early in my tenure - was the fact that I had no sight of those issues to know that its resources were that tight. It has addressed that matter since, and fair play to it for doing so.

Fines are levied. In 2024, operators were fined just short of €1.5 million by the NTA for not meeting their service level agreements. We have to continually watch this to ensure that we have a reliable, punctual service.

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