I move amendment No. 4:
In page 17, to delete lines 5 to 15 and substitute the following:
"28.—Notwithstanding any provision contained in any existing legislation, CIE shall operate public transport services within the Authority's administrative area, to such an extent, in such a manner, and at such fare levels as the Authority may from time to time determine. Section 2 of the Transport Act, 1964, which reads "it shall be the duty of the Board (of CIE) to conduct its undertaking so that, taking account of payments made to the Board by the Minister out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, its operating expenditure, including all charges properly chargeable to revenue shall not be greater taking one year with another than the revenue of the Board', is amended by the insertion of the words ‘Dublin Transport Authority and the' between the words ‘the' and ‘Minister'."
I will stop there to indicate that this is a very radical suggestion with regard to Dublin transport. As of now, such decisions are made by CIE, in so far as Dublin city services and suburban rail services are concerned, different sectors of the company dealing with road and rail respectively. The overall thinking behind the establishment of the Authority was that plans would be co-ordinated and therefore an authority outside the agency, in this case CIE, would be charged with the responsibility of organising the transport services. It is important that the Authority should be in a position to elaborate their transport schemes for the Dublin area and have the power in the Bill, which they would if CIE were an agent of the Authority, to put those plans into effect.
As this House knows well, if a company like CIE or the future triple or double company exercise their statutory role in the area, there is not much point in asking the Dublin Transport Authority to advise them, yet they should be in a position to advise them. As conceived by us it was to be an expert authority. There is not much point in giving them power to advise because in fact CIE would have the power to say: "No, we think this is the way it should be and we are not taking the advice given by the Dublin Transport Authority". This is the kernel of the problem as I see it.
I draw the attention of the House to the wording of the amendment:
... within the Authority's administrative area, to such an extent, in such a manner, and at such fare levels as the Authority may from time to time determine.
If the House were to accept this, the Authority would be in the way of improving our transport in the capital city. The establishment of the Authority has no other purpose. There is no point in having it in a consultancy or advisory role. It would be just another talking shop and a joke as far as making anything effective which had been decided upon with regard to the operation of CIE was concerned.
I am not too sure whether part of the amendment is properly constructed but I will read the rest of it into the record:
Section 2 of the Transport Act, 1964, which reads ‘it shall be the duty of the Board (of CIE) to conduct its undertakings so that, taking account of payments made to the Board by the Minister out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, its operating expenditure, including all charges properly chargeable to revenue shall not be greater taking one year with another than the revenue of the Board', is amended by the insertion of the words ‘Dublin Transport Authority and the' between the words ‘the' and ‘Minister'.".
Whatever about the obfuscation of the wording — and there is some — the general purpose is that in so far as the Dublin area is concerned and the defined area for the Authority, the Authority would make their case, as suggested by the defeated amendment No. 2, on the basis of the plan and get the money. Then they would utilise that money in both the services and infrastructure area.
I have been talking particularly about the services area because that is the area in which CIE operate. A good deal of frustration felt by the Minister's predecessors, and perhaps by the Minister himself, was due to the fact that there was no control over services development. Interested groups such as residents' associations were at liberty to make suggestions and for the most part they would be received and at least listened to by CIE. CIE might be elaborating plans for roadways, Dublin Corporation might be anxious for some other kind of development or possibly Dún Laoghaire Borough Council or Dublin County Council might have plans.
The whole thrust of the amendment before the House on Report Stage has been to see to it that there is not any unnecessary duplication of activity or, what is worse than duplication, activities which are at cross-purposes which would involve the wasteful expenditure of public moneys because of lack of coordination. For that reason I have been pushing the amendments that have come before the House today and this amendment is in line with the others. I do not think we have time to have another division before 7 o'clock on this amendment and for that reason I should like to tease it out fully and ask the support of the House for it. I intend to come back to it.