David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In response to the Minister, I do live in the real world. In the world that I live in, the Minister's plan is to put out to tender a number of bus routes in Waterford. He has not answered the fundamental question I asked, which is why 100% of bus routes in Waterford city are to go to tender, when the national average is only 10%. Why is Waterford being singled out? The reality is that once those routes are put out to tender they can be transferred from Bus Éireann to private bus operators that operate to make money, not to provide a public service. There is a concern and a fear among people who depend on public bus services. Those services meet a social as well as an economic need. Once we go down the slippery road of transferring the provision of services from the State to private operators, in time we could see fewer services. We will see the colour of the Minister's money on the question of whether we actually get improved services. I attended a launch a number of years ago of transport plans by one of the Minister's predecessors in the role, who lived in Waterford. We were promised super buses and all sorts of service improvements, which never came, a bit like the hypothetical bus.