Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Mooney for facilitating this and I apologise to the Minister and Senator O'Neill. I mean no discourtesy to any party. I thank the Minister for his presentation and the many interesting points made. The deadline is because of the need to take a team photograph of the members banking inquiry prior to the presentation of its report at 3 p.m.

There is much to support in the Bill and I will briefly go through some amendments. I will not press them as that would be the height of rudeness towards the House. I will go through the thoughts involved with them.As with yesterday, I wish we were some months away from dissolution and we could go through some of these things and see whether we could tease out anything worthwhile. I again thank the House for facilitating this. I gather that all Stages will be taken today. I will not be moving mine at any later stage as we did yesterday so I hope the Minister will be able to leave the House as he wishes.

Is it possible for the NTA to be the regulatory body? It regulates buses. Could it take over the functions referred to by the Minister relating to railways? In respect of the deletion of the section referred to by the Minister relating to the NTA and rail passenger services, including light rail and metro, I would make it more comprehensive. Does it have advantages in terms of reducing the number of quangos and getting better administrative fit? The Minister is a far better judge of that than I am.

St. Stephen's Green received a Green Flag award. The Green Flag is an international scheme that promotes the highest standards in parks and green spaces and the OPW is very proud of it. I was seeking to repeal a section of the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008 which allows access to St. Stephen's Green. Can St. Stephen's Green be protected given how much we value it as a wonderful neighbourhood facility and how much the OPW has put into it? Does it need protection? The original protection was from 1877 when the Guinness family donated it to the city. Those protections were reduced in 2008. Happily, nothing has happened. It is as beautiful as ever but do we need to retain those protections?

Dispatch operations are in the world of Uber and Halo and so on. Do we need to be involved in the regulation of that? In respect of small public service vehicles, I understand that the application for a licence must be accompanied by a written declaration by the applicant for the licence concerning the roadworthiness of the vehicle and compliance with vehicle standards specified in the small public service vehicle regulations. Is it necessary to have confirmation of that if somebody says they are compliant or is the documentation required to prove compliance? Is there a full stop or comma in the wrong place that makes it implicit that they sign their application but they also independently provide advice rather than self-assessment? If that strengthens things, I will leave it with the Minister for his consideration.

We discussed safety yesterday with many contributions from all sides. Should all safety be looked after by one safety organisation? Rather than retaining the Railway Safety Commission and adding an economic function, why not put the economic function into the NTA and put the safety function in with road safety? Rail represents probably about 2% or 3% of passenger movements in the country. I think we have a budget of approximately €15 million or €16 million, which is far higher than its proportion of traffic. Is safety an activity we could conduct under one body or two?

I apologise to the House for being rushed but if those contributions are of use to the Minister and other Senators, that is the spirit in which they are offered. When one is on a committee investigating a €64 billion banking bailout, transport problems seem quite solvable and manageable so I wish the rest of the House every success in doing so.