Tom Morrissey (Progressive Democrats)

There is little in this initiative with which anybody could disagree. However, I will go further and state that since I became a public representative in the early 1990s I understood the Dublin Transportation Office, DTO, existed and we had to bow and genuflect to it. Nothing would happen in Dublin or the region without having the nod and wink and agreement of the DTO and that is how I understand the situation to be today. On examining what the Minister of State is attempting to challenge and implement, one finds he states it is to promote the greater use of public transport, particularly by improving its performance and increasing its attractiveness.

There is a simple initiative that will never get as far as the Clare Street initiative because it will not get through the Department of Finance. I raised the issue of the travel saver pass on numerous occasions in this House. It has been available since 1997 through salary sacrifice but only through employers. I have discussed extending this scheme with the Minister for Finance and the previous incumbent of that office. The most recent letter I received in August told me to get lost and that this would not be done. The reasons given were amazing, and included that if the ticket was made more widely available in the manner I suggested, it would increase the workload of local area offices of the Revenue Commissioners. What rubbish, and I call it rubbish for one reason. A few years ago the bin tax was introduced in Dublin and every householder is entitled to claim tax relief on it. It was not mentioned at the time that it could not be introduced because it would increase the workload of revenue offices. Instead it is primarily targeted at Government offices.

Some buses that run into the city centre at peak time are empty while cars come to the city with only one person in them. I challenge anyone here to state how many motorists in the city know a travel saver pass exists. Why is it not widely advertised? The only question the Department of Finance asks of Dublin Bus every year at budget time regarding how many of these tickets were bought is how much God-damn money it has spent advertising it. It does not want it advertised because, as the letter to me stated, it would be a revenue loss to the Department of Finance. The situation is so ridiculous that the Department said if the ticket was more widely available and people could ring up the sales office of Dublin Bus to buy it for themselves, the ticket would be more expensive. It would not be more expensive because if people could buy it for themselves, they would be entitled to tax allowance at the rate of 22% or 40%, while at present employers' RSI of 10% comes on top of that. If people buy the ticket themselves there would not be any employers' RSI so each individual ticket would cost less.

In the meantime, buses and cars come to Dublin. Although a travel saver pass is in place the Department of Finance has its hands on the purse strings and will not allow the Department of Transport to go any further with it. This will never be part of the Clare Street initiative because the Minister for Finance has ordained it, yet one of the bold statements of the Clare Street initiative, which I fully endorse and support, promotes greater use of public transport.

I have lost count of the number of times Senator Terry and I raised the need for bus stops in our area when we were members of the county council. Four years later some of those bus stops have not yet been provided. They have not been provided because bus stops are dependent on their advertising revenue potential. A bus stop is only provided if Adshel or whatever other company providing the bus stop gets advertising on it. It is not dependent on how many people would use the bus stop; it relates to how many cars are passing by and to how many people would see the advertisement. This is how we are making public transport more attractive.

We have spent millions on our bus fleet. One does not often see a bus broken down compared to years ago. The buses provided under the national development plan are good clean ones. A total of 137 buses, carrying approximately 8,000 people, travel between Heuston Station and O'Connell Street between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. every day. The Luas, located 100 yd. from there, carries 2,000 people, yet we all say how fantastic is the Luas. The Railway Safety Order gave it a thoroughfare with which nothing can compete. It can travel straight through to town. Although 8,000 people are carried by buses, the workhorses of Dublin that cover areas no other transport system will, every quality bus corridor, QBC, has to fight its way for every inch it gets, be it from traders or householders along the way.

We have invested significant amounts in public transport in terms of our bus fleet yet we have snarled it up by putting in place a QBC system that does not work. We have done nothing imaginative about our QBCs. Last year, €35 million was allocated in the budget for the further development of QBCs and to resolve some of the bottlenecks on existing QBCs. I have not seen one initiative in the Dublin 15 area on QBCs. A QBC in my estate is not monitored by the Dublin Transportation Office, DTO. The DTO monitors this QBC from the middle of the Navan Road. Every car in the country parks on it every morning. The QBC might as well not have been put there at all. On the one hand we put in place expensive traffic calming measures while on the other hand we do not even enforce them. I hope the five lay people referred to by the Minister will be public transport users and that one of them occasionally uses the commuter service from Clonsilla or any of the other areas on the outer regions of Dublin so he or she can see the problems faced by public transport users.

While I welcome today's announcement of €350 million for Kildare, it is long overdue and the interconnector is badly needed. If we are to solve Dublin's transport problems, we had better start connecting up what we have already. We must allow buses to travel more freely around the city and provide proper bus stops, bus shelters and a reliable train service which will attract people to use it. The proposed system for Kildare is fantastic but I regret that it will take four years to roll out. It can take up to two years to get a QBC into an area on an existing roadway, although it is basically a white line painted along a road. I foresee major public consultation difficulties because of the objections, representations and so on. Then when we do get QBCs, we do not even police them.

Many initiatives must be taken. The Dublin Transportation Office and Dublin City Council boast that the initiatives they have imposed in the city in recent years have resulted in 11% less car traffic between the two canals every day. They boast that they have pushed that car traffic onto the M50. Even though it is claimed that so much has been done, we are now looking at another initiative. As Senator Norris stated, any new initiative must be in the direction of public transport. One small initiative would demonstrate how serious the Department of Finance is in regard to this issue. I do not blame the Department of Transport as its hands are tied even regarding the implementation of the ten-year plan. The Department of Finance will dictate when and how that gets off the starting blocks.

The Department of Finance could demonstrate its willingness to allow every person in Dublin to leave his or her car at home and to get a travel saver pass so that he or she could get on the buses which have already been provided. Why would anybody get on a bus when the bus fleet is operating at something like 22% efficiency, travelling at something like 9 km or 13 km per hour? However, we have invested a significant amount of money in buses. I appeal to the Minister to examine the bus and train system and bus shelters so that people might leave their cars at home without getting drenched on the way to work.