Fiona O'Malley (Progressive Democrats)

No but the inclusion of the term here is not necessary. It is a tautology in so far as competition will sustain those who provide the best service. That is why it is not necessary to insert the term here.

Senator Donohoe referred to section 52 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act. If we are to provide or renew existing licences, it will involve considerable public subsidy and in a five year timeframe it would involve approximately €1 billion. That is a great deal of money and the Senator made the point that we do not have that kind of money to spend again. The screening regulatory impact analysis the Department provided for the Bill states the Department of Finance did not have much to comment on the Bill but, as Senator Donohoe pointed out, the Bill promises, if that is the right word, €1.4 billion of public subsidy to existing practitioners. The Senator pointed out that these are straitened times. We need to know that any money the Department is allocated to provide services to people is spent exactly where it is needed, namely, directly on routes that are not profit-making.

It is not clear where the subsidy is required. I was alarmed to see a sightseeing bus operated by Dublin Bus carrying the logo of the national development plan. It would be fair to assume we are subsidising sightseeing tours, which is not an appropriate use of public moneys. Given that private operators also provide sightseeing services, why should we put a public company in competition with them? I cannot see where the public service obligation arises in that instance.

We are about to exclude more than 70% of the bus fleet from public subsidies. The fleet operated by Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann is minute compared to the 6,600 private buses in the country. Is it wise to exclude them? I am surprised the Department of Finance had nothing to say regarding the regulatory impact analysis and I ask the Minister to comment on it.

I may have diverged from the amendments but I wished to respond to the points raised by Senator Donohoe on section 52.