Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 May 2023
5. Deputy Mark Ward asked the Minister for Transport if he will provide details of the fines for service failures over the past two years for Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead; and the reasons and rationale for deciding these fines. [20734/23]
View answerAccording to information I have received from the NTA, almost €4 million in fines were incurred in 2021 and 2022 by Dublin Bus and the private operator Go-Ahead. Will the Minister provide the details of and rationale for these fines for service failures over the past two years? Will he put his response in the context of this morning's news of Greenpeace saying that Dublin has the worst public transport system in Europe?
Publicly subsidised bus services are provided on the basis of public transport service contracts made between the relevant operators and the NTA. These contracts are a requirement of the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008, which sets out the broad parameters of the contracts. The contracts are published and available to view on the NTA's website.
As the House will be aware, the vast majority of subsidised bus services operating in Dublin are provided by Dublin Bus, with the remainder provided by Go-Ahead Ireland. I assure the Deputy that I am fully aware of the service delivery issues relating to these operators over the past two years and the negative impact these issues are having on the travelling public. I reassure him that my Department has been engaging regularly with the NTA on these service issues and we continue to keep the situation under close review.
Many operators continue to experience staffing difficulties in terms of recruitment and retention of drivers and mechanics. Unfortunately, this is impacting on the quality of service provided to public transport users. That said, the NTA closely monitors the contractual performance of operators in respect of reliability, punctuality, regularity and customer service quality. Accordingly, deductions are imposed on operators where performance standards specified in contracts are not met. In 2022, €8 million and €2.4 million was deducted from the contracts of Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland, respectively. This represented an increase on the 2021 figures of €700,000 for Dublin Bus and €300,000 for Go-Ahead Ireland and was commensurate with a drop-off in the quality of service provided.
The rationale behind this system of deductions is to improve the reliability, frequency and overall quality of our public transport offering so that we can continue on our path in shifting towards more low-carbon transport solutions. While acknowledging the frustrations felt in certain areas, I am informed by the NTA that the system of deductions has resulted in significant aggregate improvements to operator performance and service experience by customers in recent years.
I thank the Minister for his response. I will have to compare the information I received from the NTA with what he just said. In 2022, more than €2.85 million in fines were incurred by Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead - €1.642 million for Dublin Bus and €1.212 million for Go-Ahead. In 2021, their total €1.134 million in fines comprised €697,000 for Dublin Bus and €437,000 for Go-Ahead. Despite Go-Ahead only having 10% of bus routes in Dublin, it amassed 42.5% of fines in 2022 for failures in punctuality, reliability and service provision. In 2021, it accounted for 38% of fines. There was an increase of 152% in the total fines incurred by Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead between 2021 and 2022. The Minister has to admit that the situation is getting worse. Does he agree that the privatisation of our bus services has failed the consumer, and what is he going to do to buck this trend?
The key problem has been in getting drivers at Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Go-Ahead and other private operators. Every bus operator will tell the same story. To address this challenge and help close the gap, we engaged with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and secured agreement for 1,500 work permits for drivers who are needed across the country. Deputies will have seen Dublin Bus's major advertising campaign, which I understand has been successful. Private operators, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are starting to get the staff they need. When speaking with Bus Éireann about this subject in recent weeks, it told me that it was starting to deploy more female drivers, which is helping it to close the staffing gap that caused the problem. Increasing permits and broadening the scope of advertising are the best ways of solving the problem.
I understand the issue with drivers, but there is also a difference in parity between drivers at Dublin Bus and drivers at Go-Ahead. The latter do not have contracts or conditions as good as the former and Go-Ahead is not as attractive a workplace as Dublin Bus. This is an issue with the private provider.
Go-Ahead operates the 76, 18, L51 and L52 routes in Clondalkin, Palmerstown and Lucan. The 76 route goes to Tallaght. Residents contact me regularly having missed appointments at Tallaght Hospital because their buses did not turn up. BusConnects is not fully connected. There are residents in Lucan who watch helplessly as bus after bus passes them by full. Residents in Newcastle and Rathcoole, which have two of the fastest growing populations in the State, feel abandoned because of the lack of services.
I am all for getting people out of cars and onto public transport, but the Government must provide adequate public transport to do this. What will the Minister say to those in my area who are missing school, work and hospital appointments?
It is never tolerable if people miss a bus service, particularly if the operator is not delivering on its contract agreements in respect of regular services.
That is why we have the system of regulation and fines and of holding those companies to account. Despite all these problems, particularly regarding the difficulty in getting drivers, what we have seen in the past year is public transport numbers increase very significantly, beyond what they were before Covid. That is unusual by international comparison; most other countries have not seen that. I believe that the combination of the 20% and 60% reductions in fares and some of the priority measures we are only starting to put in place is starting to see these bus services really increase and expand.
We have a lot of work to do. It is critical that we get the BusConnects project through planning and that we start delivering it and, in the interim, look at other measures in Dublin city centre and elsewhere where we can reallocate road space in order that the buses get through. The best way of solving this problem is not just by having as many drivers as we can get but also by making sure the buses are not stuck in traffic and that is what we are committing to do.
