asked the Minister for Communications the profit earned or the loss incurred by the DART system to date; and if the Government are satisfied with the performance of the system.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dublin Area Rapid Transit System.
2.
The financial results of the DART system for 1984 are not yet available.
The performance of DART to date in terms of passenger carryings has been encouraging, with record numbers, in excess of 44,000 per day, using the services. Much greater usage of DART is required, however, to help remunerate the capital investment of over £113 million involved. CIE's target is to have over 80,000 passengers per day by 1987. Much remains to be done if this is to be achieved. In particular, the feeder bus services to the principal stations should be introduced without further delay. I am anxious to see a speedy conclusion to the negotiations with the CIE unions on that issue.
I did not hear the first few words of the Minister's answer. Did he mention a figure?
I said that financial results of the DART system for 1984 are not yet available.
What results does the Minister expect? As it is now the month of February, is there any information available?
I expect to have pretty clear indications of CIE results for 1984 very shortly. The information I have at present is that, overall, CIE's deficit will, for the second year running, be reduced in real terms. It will be more or less on target to the sum of £104 million and there is a sum of £8 million included in this for DART to cover service and financial charges. I do not have a figure for operational losses.
Could the Minister give me any indication of what that figure will be?
No.
The Minister said that 44,000 passengers use this service daily, and I wish to take this opportunity to say that it is an excellent service. How many passengers do we need per day to make it a break even operation, including interest charges?
To achieve a break even operation, without interest or depreciation charges, I understand that we would need 87,000 passengers per day, almost double the number using the service at present, which is a record figure. Deputies will see that it requires a very big challenge to double that number, and this does not take account of depreciation and interest charges, although the Government have decided to take interest charges on board.
If interest charges were to be included we would probably be talking about well over 100,000 people using the service every day?
I think so, yes.
The Minister mentioned a sum of £8 million and went on to say that that included certain charges, etc. and that he did not know what the operational losses would be. Does the Minister know that there will be operational losses and what does he mean by that phrase?
Operational losses means the difference between revenue and expenditure other than expenditure on depreciation or interest. I have no doubt that there will be a significant loss on the DART system as it is operational only since July.
Could the Minister say when the bus feeder system will be fully operational?
No, and I will take this opportunity to say that it is a matter of great exasperation to me — and to the taxpayers who funded the DART system — that there has been such a delay in introducing feeder services. I implore all in CIE to reach agreement fast on the feeder service, because the success of DART will be greatly affected by this service. Considering that so much public money has been spent on the system, it is not good enough that there is a delay in providing the feeder system.
Does the Minister agree that, in the event of the feeder service being fully operational, there would be a very considerable increase in the number of passengers using the system?
I certainly hope so, and it should make a substantial difference.
Is the failure of the provision of a feeder service due to industrial disputes, and is there more than one union involved? What is the present position of the negotiations?
I understand the problem is that it has not been possible for management and unions to agree on the introduction of the feeder services.
Is there more than one union involved?
I understand that one union in particular wants to associate this issue with several others which cannot, by their nature, be resolved immediately. This is an urgent problem and must be sorted out, because the investment in the DART system made by the taxpayers is so great that we cannot let anything stand in the way of the success of the system.
The Minister said that operational losses were involved for a six months period. Is he taking into account other expenditure which was incurred before the service started? If so, the six months should not be relevant.
The DART system commenced operations at the beginning of July last year so it was in operation for only six months. While the system was being constructed all the charges were capitalised so that operating figures did not come into account until 1 July, and that is why the six months period is involved. The financial charges for those months amount to a sum of £8 million and would be £16 million for a full year.
I am still not clear about operational losses.
I have already said that it is expected that we would need about 87,000 passengers per day to make it a break even operation. The figure achieved so far is about 44,000 so it naturally follows that there are operational losses of a very significant kind.
Is the six month period relevant?
The DART system started operating only last July.
Was that a better six months than the previous six months? That is what I am trying to get at.
I do not know.
We need at least 100,000 people using the system to make it break even operationally?
Yes.