Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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90. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he is aware of ongoing issues with the provision of bus services by a company (details supplied) and the fact that its contract is up for renewal shortly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34357/25]

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Is the Minister aware of the ongoing issues with the provision of Go-Ahead Ireland's bus service in County Wicklow and the fact that its contract is up for renewal? I extend an invitation to him to come to Wicklow and stand at a bus stop down there with me and wait for the bus to come, seeing as invitations are being thrown out this evening.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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We will all be travelling on buses together soon. I use the bus a lot but not in Wicklow.

I am aware, as the Deputy obviously is, that Go-Ahead Ireland has experienced difficulties in maintaining service levels, particularly in the first quarter of this year, primarily due to a shortage of mechanics. In response, the company took a number of remedial actions, including bringing in additional mechanics from Britain and securing further technical support from external sources. I understand that the situation has improved significantly since then, not necessarily on every route, with fleet availability returning to normal within a relatively short period. Go-Ahead Ireland has reported that since January, eight new engineering staff have joined the company and 129 drivers have started in the driving school. In addition, Go-Ahead Ireland has completed overseas recruitment, with ten engineers expected to start in September.

The NTA monitors the performance of all public transport operators, as the Deputy will know. Under existing contractual arrangements, financial penalties apply where performance falls below agreed standards. The NTA continues to engage with Go-Ahead Ireland to enhance service reliability.

Having said that, things will happen but we need to ensure as best as possible that punctuality and reliability and, underpinning that, affordability happen. I instructed the NTA to carry out a review of the ghost bus phenomenon, for want of a better phrase, and I continue to keep that positive pressure on in my supporting role as Minister to make sure that people can be assured that buses which are scheduled arrive on time.

In my supplementary reply, I will provide a little more detail of what will happen in the coming period. I have initial information from review; I do not have the completed information on it. If there are any particular matters relating to Wicklow or anywhere else as regards buses not showing up, I want to know about it.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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The roll-out started in January, and there were major problems when it started. It has got better. Unfortunately, there are still problems on many routes, including the L2, L1, L3 and L15. The reality is that people who go to get a bus need to know that it will show up. They need more than to think that it might show up or that it will show up most of the time. A bus needs to show up every single time or else people will not use buses and will not be able to trust the service. Unfortunately, that is what is happening in Wicklow, with buses not showing up, buses being late and elderly people having to wait for two hours for an hourly bus that just did not appear. I have had two instances this month of the last bus of the night being cancelled. It is completely unacceptable for that to happen. I raised the matter with the NTA, which stated that this is not to be allowed at all. We have had multiple instances of it, so there are still major problems.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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There is still work to be done. We are adding new routes. As everyone knows, in all sectors, but particularly around drivers and mechanics, there have been shortages of workers because it is a very competitive environment. We have commenced further recruitment across all our transport operators.

We started the review in spring. Two of the main reasons for buses not showing up are, one, late notification by operators of cancelled and curtailed services, with that resulting in incorrect information being given to customers, and, two, technical issues with the older bus automatic vehicle location equipment. That equipment is being replaced with live data on each bus. This will improve the service greatly from 2026.

We have to continue to monitor the situation. The Deputy is right to raise complaints, certainly, but let us not lose sight of the fact that we had a record number of passenger journeys last year. We are at about 1 million public transport passenger journeys every day now.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister for that. I acknowledge that there have been improvements, but some routes have been particularly hit. I believe they are those routes in Wicklow. This is one of the problems. When a bus does not show up, it requires the person left standing there to email the NTA, Go-Ahead Ireland or a TD. They usually come to a public representative and say there are problems. When we see that there are multiple problems, we raise the matter here with the Minister. What would be really useful is transparency when it comes to what is being missed. No-Show Bus in Cork was set up by a student there, and there is one in Dublin that was set up by Dublin Inquirer. If we had some sort of system like that, it would bring greater transparency in respect of this problem. If we could see exactly how problematic this is, the difficulties it is causing and on what routes it is causing them, in a more real-time fashion, that would be very useful.

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