Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise this issue in order to ask how we, as parliamentarians, can engage with the National Transport Authority, NTA. The issue on from a public meeting I held in the Temperance Hall in Kinsale on Monday night last. We filled the hall and had a big debate about what is happening regarding public transport in Kinsale, the lack of a bus shelter on Clontarf Street in Cork, issues regarding the capacity of buses and safety at bus stops. These are major issues for the people of Kinsale and the surrounding hinterland who use the bus service. I have been trying to engage with the NTA for nine and a half months in order to ask its representatives to meet me. They refuse to do so. This is a Government-funded organisation and it is aloof. It does not want to engage with the public or with the public representatives. The NTA does what it wants, when it wants and has no regard for anyone. What happened in this case is that the NTA relocated a bus stop from the bus station in Cork city to the side of a road in a dangerous location and with no shelter. The bus drivers who operate the route turned up at the public meeting because they cannot stand over what is happening. I wrote to the NTA again last week and I was told it did not have the staff to meet me.

We have to decide what is happening with the State and how we can move things forward. As an organisation, the NTA has a fantastic budget and is involved in licensing routes and providing services. However, is does this in its own way. If it is not done that way, the authority will not engage. During the summer, the NTA tried to put a one-way system through the small village, Minane Bridge, from where I come. When it did not get its way, it just pulled out. We need to have a line of communication. I am aware that he is attending a Cabinet meeting, but I am disappointed that the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is not here because he has due responsibility to the public who elected him and to the Parliament. He also has a responsibility with regard to the budget he puts in allocates to this organisation.

The NTA does not give a damn about us. Following my various correspondences with representatives of the NTA and in the aftermath of their refusal to meet me, I have been sent material from their liaison teams basically stating that there is nothing they can do and that the decision has been made. That is not democracy; that is not what it is all about. To think that, on a very wet and windy Monday night in Kinsale, we could fill a hall to discuss an issue like this shows the absolute outrage in the community. I ask the Minister of State what process is in place to allow us to meet representatives from the NTA. They do not want to meet me, the public or members of the council. They will inform us what they are going to do. This is a serious issue. We have set up a quango that is now out of control and doing what it wants, when it wants. As a result, there is no accountability. The Minister is accountable. He funds the NTA. If he is not going to pull it back and establish a line of communication, we will go nowhere. We need accountability and to know exactly what is happening. I ask the Minister of State to give me a response to the question as to how I can meet representatives of this aloof organisation.