Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and his officials back to the House. I broadly welcome the publication of the Public Transport Regulation Bill 2009, which has been promised by the Minister and his predecessors for many years, because it brings some sense to the whole bus licensing regime. The time for reforming the antiquated 1932 bus licensing laws is long overdue. The different arrangements for CIE and the private operators, as defined in the 1932 and 1958 Acts, made no sense whatsoever. Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and private operators have often been precluded from offering new services to commuters because of the outdated and cumbersome bus licensing system overseen by the Minister and the Department of Transport.

The Public Transport Regulation Bill will establish a national transport authority and transfer the responsibility for bus licensing for the whole country to the NTA. It is also proposed that the Dublin Transport Authority and the Commission for Taxi Regulation will be subsumed into the NTA. It is to be hoped that the new NTA legislation will not slow down the establishment of a much-needed transport regulator for the greater Dublin area. I have not seen any mention of a timeline for establishment of the NTA and some other Senators have mentioned this. Is it in the Bill? I would be interested in the Minister's comments.

The explanatory and financial memorandum states that there will be no immediate significant financial implications for the Exchequer as the authority will rely on a surplus from the Commission for Taxi Regulation to fund its operation. I have serious reservations about this and if a body such as this is to achieve anything it must be properly resourced. Might the effect of this be that taxi regulation licence costs will have to remain high to maintain the revenue stream necessary to fund the authority? I would be interested in the Minister's comments on that.

The new bus licensing regulations contained in the Bill will have a profound effect on public transport bus services. Section 10 is entitled "General provisions for the consideration of applications for grant of licenses" and will require a good detail of teasing out on Committee Stage. Many things contained in that section can be discussed. There must be a level playing field in all of this and there must be no ideological bias in favour of private operators. There must be no opportunity for cherry-picking of routes by private operators, as other Senators have said. There must be no hiving-off of profitable bits to private operators. There must be fair play for all operators.

We saw what happened in Swords where, because of the licensing of the Swords Express, Dublin Bus was restricted from changing anything on its services out of Swords for fear of any impact on the private operator concerned. Regulation of competition should not overly limit the possibility of a competitor modifying its service offering. That is very important. It is also essential that the needs of passengers are put at the centre of bus route licensing and the Minister referred to this in his speech. How is this to be properly addressed? In planning legislation, with which the Minister is familiar from his past responsibilities, there is a requirement for consultation with local people on planning matters, but my sense is that in a lot of cases, while people make submissions or whatever, they are totally ignored and people do what they planned to do anyway. I hope some mechanism is put in place so that the needs and views of people are taken into account properly.

Buses can provide an excellent service if that service is properly designed in consultation with public transport users. The people from my constituency in parts of Dublin North such as Lusk, Rush, Skerries and Balbriggan have in recent times, following the collapse of the Broadmeadow viaduct and its impact on the train service, seen what a good bus service can be like for the first time and many have taken a liking to it. I have been out in the early mornings talking to people as they used the alternative service on offer, so I have a real sense of what people are saying.

People in Lusk and Rush, for example, while the rail service is down, no longer have to walk or drive a couple of miles to the station, find parking spaces, pay for it and have to stand all the way into the city centre. With the alternative bus service now in place, many commuters have only a short distance to walk to the nearest bus stop to pick up a bus and have a seat on an express bus that goes through the port tunnel and gets them to work in a comfortable and speedy fashion. I would recommend to the Minister that he request larnród Éireann and Dublin Bus, in consultation with his Department officials, to take the opportunity during the next number of months, while the viaduct is being repaired, to seriously survey commuters as to how their needs might be better met with a redesigned service.

Rather than just reverting back to the services that were being offered before the viaduct collapsed, efforts should be made to try to redesign the services being offered to provide the optimum offering of a mix of rail and bus for the north Fingal travelling public. Maximum use must be made of the port tunnel for high-speed public bus transport. Bus and rail services must be developed continually if commuters are to be enticed out of their cars and on to public transport. The delivery of metro north to the airport and Swords will play a significant part in all of this, but in the meantime buses will play a major part. It was important that the Minister spoke positively about metro north and other Transport 21 infrastructure. It was astonishing, therefore, that the Minister allowed Dublin Bus to take buses out of service during the past year. There was much comment on that so I will not go beyond that at this point.

I welcome the appointment of John Fitzgerald, former Dublin city manager, as chairperson of the Dublin Transport Authority. His experience of planning and development in Dublin will be of enormous benefit to the authority. However, no sooner has the appointment been made than the Minister proposes to subsume it into the new NTA. Is he to be chairman of the NTA? It seems from the Minister's statement that he is. The Minister might clarify that issue.

Although the DTA is to be subsumed into new NTA, the powers given to the DTA, such as in the areas of transport infrastructure, integrated ticketing, traffic management and land use provisions for the greater Dublin area, have not been extended to cover the rest of the country. I am interested in the Minister's comments on that. This will mean that the NTA will have these powers in the greater Dublin area but will not have them outside this area. I ask the Minister to explain the reasoning behind this decision because it seems strange to me. Most of us in this House, notwithstanding certain reservations and amendments tabled and hard fought for, welcomed the Dublin Transport Authority. It is now gone before it even starts. When subsumed into the national transport authority, it will not have the optimal and singular focus that is required to resolve Dublin's transport problems. Dublin still needs a transport authority. I ask the Minister to clarify if it is the case that the remit of the authority remains exclusively for Dublin until it makes a recommendation to extend its remit to the rest of the country. If so, when is that likely to happen? Is it the case that, to all intents and purposes, the NTA remains Dublin-focused until such a recommendation is made by the authority?

This Bill will also see the role of the Commission for Taxi Regulation being merged into the NTA. However it makes only few changes to the taxi regulatory regime. The only significant change is an increase in sanctions for unlicensed taxi operation. There is concern within the taxi industry - the Minister will be aware of this - that the current regime will lead to an oversupply of taxis in the market and there is much evidence of this already. Many taxi drivers have informed me they hoped that the development happening in this Bill would provide an opportunity for serious reform of the failing regulatory system that oversees the taxi industry. The Commission for Taxi Regulation does not have the power to limit the number of taxi licences and this Bill does not change the powers of the regulator in this regard. This is unfortunate. An opportunity has been missed and I ask the Minister to give this some consideration as I am giving consideration to tabling an amendment on Committee Stage to provide such powers to the regulator. The powers might never be used, but if the commissioner sees fit, he or she should have available to him or her the power to act if he or she considers it appropriate.

The consultative powers given to the NTA on planning guidelines are similar to the powers given to the DTA. However, less extensive powers are given to the NTA regarding development plans and local area plans. Why should this be so? If it made sense for the DTA, then why not for the NTA? Is it a question of resources and is the Minister bringing forward non-optimal legislation because of a lack of resources? The possibility of a directly elected mayor of Dublin, which was referred to by Senator Donohoe, becoming chairperson of the Dublin Transport Authority is now gone out the window with the merging of the DTA into the NTA. This is also unfortunate.

There is much to be welcomed in this Bill, but as I have said, there are some missed opportunities. I will go into greater detail on Committee Stage. I compliment the Oireachtas library and research service on its comprehensive digest of this Bill, which has been prepared and made available over recent days. I ask the Minister not to take too seriously Senator Quinn's advice that he should examine the free travel scheme. It should be left alone.