Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 November 2022
88. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Transport his plans regarding the chronic problems with delays and no shows (details supplied) on routes across the city; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55024/22]
View answerAs Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport; however, I am not involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. The National Transport Authority (NTA) has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally and for the scheduling and timetabling of these services in conjunction with the relevant transport operators.
The performance of all public transport operators is monitored by the NTA as part of the contractual arrangements in place between it and the operators.
Many operators in the sector are experiencing difficulties with staffing difficulties both as a result of COVID-19 related absences and also difficulties in recruiting new drivers. These issues are found across all types of operators – public and private; however, it is also the case that Go-Ahead Ireland is experiencing higher than normal levels of Covid-related staff absences at present resulting in a knock-on effect on service delivery with some services not operating as scheduled.
The NTA is working with operators to try and mitigate the impacts through –
- Recruitment campaigns in recent months with significant numbers of additional drivers expected once required training and tests are completed and licenses issued by the RSA;
- NTA engagement with the RSA to try and expedite the testing and licence process for new bus drivers; and
- NTA working with operators to minimise service cancellations, ensure first- and last- service buses operate and on low-frequency routes to avoid, where possible, the cancellation of consecutive low frequency services.
Further, as part of the NTA’s contractual performance monitoring system with operators, issues of poor reliability and punctuality performance can result in financial penalties for those operators, such as Go-Ahead Ireland. Payment deductions for poor operating performance were applied to Go-Ahead Ireland for Q4 2021 and Q1 2022, amounting to €266,968 and €209,188 respectively.
Operators are forecasting significant improvements in reliability in the coming months, dependent on successful recruitment and retention of critical staff, in particular drivers. It is hoped that this will resolve the reliability issues currently being experienced.
