Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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5. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will instruct the NTA to meet with residents and representatives in the Ballyfermot area to discuss the service on the new G spine and specifically the collapse of services in the lower Ballyfermot area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2375/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government commits to a ‘fundamental change in the nature of transport in Ireland’ and this is supported by the National Development Plan which has allocated €35bn to maintain, enhance and improve transport infrastructure across the country over the next 10 years.

BusConnects Dublin is one of the improvements we need to make and as well as the infrastructure we will see rolled out in the coming years, new services and routes are already being rolled out.

The G-Spine is the most recently introduced new service, with the G1, G2 and Route 60 commencing service on the 16 October last. I acknowledge that a number of concerns regarding service delivery on the new G-Spine have been identified by local representatives on behalf of their constituents, which are being actively considered by NTA.

The issues currently being experienced on the G-Spine are arising due to several factors, primary among them, traffic congestion on the route. I would like to reassure the Deputy that I am aware that the current G-Spine route configuration is playing a significant role in these service issues, and I have raised my concerns on these points with senior management in the NTA.

The NTA and Dublin Bus have introduced a number of corrective actions to mitigate some of these issues and further changes are being planned for the coming weeks to improve service quality.

Further, operators have undertaken extensive driver recruitment campaigns in recent months to help alleviate some of the pressure on the system.

The NTA is also working with Dublin Bus to add more running time in the schedule as a matter of urgency, with extra buses and drivers being assigned to support this. Dublin Bus is also preparing new schedules to better-match traffic conditions to achieve better punctuality and reliability along the new routes.

I understand that the NTA has offered to meet with local public representatives to discuss their concerns and I very much welcome that offer.