Joint Committee on Transport and Communications díospóireacht

Bus Services in Counties Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow: Discussion

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The purpose of the meeting today is to discuss bus services in Dublin and the surrounding counties of Wicklow, Meath and Kildare. On behalf of the committee, I am very pleased to welcome representatives from the National Transport Authority, Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland. From the National Transport Authority, I welcome Ms Anne Graham, chief executive officer, and Mr. Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services. From Bus Éireann, I welcome Mr. Stephen Kent, chief executive officer, and Mr. Allen Parker, chief customer officer. From Dublin Bus, I welcome Mr. Billy Hann, chief executive officer, Mr. Gareth Quinn, chief operations planning manager, and Mr. Phil Donohue, head of HR and development. From Go-Ahead Ireland, I welcome Ms Dervla McKay, managing director, Ms Niamh Swords, operations director, and Mr. James Caffrey, director of finance.

Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in the public meetings. I will not permit participation by members who are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members participating via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

I invite Ms Graham to make her opening statement.

Ms Anne Graham

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and members of the committee for the invitation to attend. I understand the committee wishes to focus again on the provision of bus services in Dublin, Wicklow, Meath and Kildare. To assist me in dealing with members' subsequent questions I am joined by Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services with the National Transport Authority, NTA.

The authority is responsible for the provision of an integrated, accessible public transport system. BusConnects and Connecting Ireland are key public transport programmes where the authority, in association with transport operators and local authorities, has planned new and improved networks to allow the continued economic and social development of our cities, towns and rural areas. The services are planned by the authority to allow residents and visitors the choice of sustainable, low carbon emission transport for some or all of their journeys.

I thank Mr. Hann. The last of our witnesses is Ms McKay.

Ms Dervla McKay

I am the managing director of Go-Ahead Ireland. I am joined by my colleague, Niamh Swords, who is director of operations. I thank the committee for the invitation to today’s session to discuss bus services in the greater Dublin area, Wicklow, Meath, and Kildare.

Go-Ahead Ireland has been contracted by the National Transport Authority since 2018 and we now operate a total of 33 routes, encompassing the outer Dublin metropolitan area and W routes from our Ballymount depot, and five Dublin commuter routes operating from our Naas depot. We are a team of more than 750 people employed across Dublin and Leinster, and we are proud partners of local charitable and community organisations such as Down Syndrome Ireland and FamiliBase.

Since our last presentation to the committee in July of this year, we have rolled out enhancements to our Dublin commuter services, adding 178 trips per week between our 120 and 126 route services. Most recently, in conjunction with the National Transport Authority, we launched phase 5B of the BusConnects programme. Like other phases, 5B offers new journey opportunities with more direct and more frequent services between the main travel destinations and interchanges across west and south Dublin, enhancing connectivity for local communities.

We have seen significant progress over the past five months and a growth in passenger numbers throughout 2023. Fuelling this growth are enhancements to the public transport network under BusConnects alongside tangible Government policies such as the introduction of the young adult card and the 90-minute fare. However, the services we provide would not be possible without our team of dedicated colleagues who work tirelessly to deliver for the communities we serve. At Go-Ahead Ireland, we are proud to be a diverse and inclusive employer and want to attract and retain the best talent in our industry. Using our colleague survey and engaging with our people to incorporate their feedback into our people plans for 2024 will further help to cement our position as a great place to work.

Previously we discussed with the committee issues including driver recruitment, and I am happy to report that Go-Ahead Ireland remains in a good position in recruiting new employees, with 578 drivers out on routes and 99 drivers in training in our driving school, an increase of 12% since July. We are confident this trend will continue.

Since our last discussion with the committee, we have continued to work collaboratively with the RSA on the licensing process, and as such there has been a reduction in the timings associated with the block booking for tests from five to three weeks and the volume of testing per week has increased. This has had a positive impact, with an increasing number of drivers flowing through the training process to be rostered for services. As per our previous committee presentation, the CPC requirement on individual drivers, whereby they require a physical card before being able to drive, can still be a challenge and inconsistencies in the process remain. This results in some colleagues having to wait weeks longer than others for their card, but it should be noted we are seeing more standardised return rates.

Go-Ahead Ireland continues to enjoy a positive relationship with the RSA. Its understanding and commitment to working with us to mitigate the issues we have faced not only benefits our work but, most importantly, benefits public service users. We continue to explore additional guidance and improvements to address existing challenges.

As we move towards 2024, we are ambitious for the level and breadth of services we will provide to our passengers and are confident in our ability to deliver accessible and reliable public transport services. We are grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee this afternoon to discuss the current issues impacting public transport and how future policy might be informed to meet the needs of public transport operators and the communities we are all proud to serve.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

For the benefit of those who are not members of the committee, we will go through those on the speaking roster and those who are members of the committee first. We will then go to people who have been designated as substitutes for other committee members with all other Members after that. I know we have some non-members here at the moment. Each speaker will have ten minutes.

Deputy Steven Matthews

I welcome the representatives from the various transport providers and the NTA. The last time they appeared before the committee, we had just come out of the Covid pandemic. I convey our thanks to all their front-line staff for the work they did during the pandemic providing essential services. What some of those front-line workers were exposed to last Thursday night in Dublin city was totally unacceptable. I hope they are all okay. I know people can be shaken by such an experience. They continued until as late as they possibly could and made every effort to get as many people out of the city as possible. I again pass on my thanks for that.

Prior to having this job, I worked in a public transport service provider, which gave me an opportunity to work predominantly across rail but also in some bus services. My experience of people who work in transport provision is that nobody wants to delay a passenger. Everybody is absolutely committed to services running on time and to providing a good service to the public. That is my experience of transport workers across the country predominantly. I do not think anybody in any layer of our transport agencies wants to do anything but provide a good service. Part of the problem we have is that we have a massive demand for public transport. We can see this when we put on new services, such as the Connecting Ireland and BusConnects services. There is a demand for the new rail services. We see ridership increasing out there. The number of people returning to public transport after the Covid pandemic is very positive.

For about 30 or 40 years we did not invest in our public transport services. We invested mostly in building new roads and creating car dependency. Part of the difficulty we now have is that there is massive expectation on behalf of the public for better transport services but we are trying to overcome 30 to 40 years of inertia and just steady-state investment. I realise the pressure that puts on service providers to try to crank up from a standing start to very high demand.

I have received loads of emails from constituents who are delighted with new services when they are put in place. I have had many emails from constituents very unhappy with services, mostly when the service does not turn up or is delayed and there is no communication on it, leaving children and other passengers at a bus stop. I recently had a meeting with the NTA at which we discussed a particular Go-Ahead service. I am glad to report that service is operating very well now. I have stayed in contact with the parents group whose children were left at bus stops and, thankfully, I no longer get messages from them. I take it that no messages is good news.

Bus Éireann operates the 133 route from Wicklow. It is a great service with massive demand. The only complaint I get is when a single-decker bus shows up at peak time and it is full by the time it gets to Kilpedder or Newtown. I understand the difficulty with recruitment. Of course, there is a difficulty with bus driver recruitment, but at the other end of it we have these vehicles that are in service for 20 or 21 hours a day which requires a proper maintenance regime with good mechanics and good systems to keep it reliable. I know nobody in Bus Éireann or the NTA intentionally sends out a single-decker bus at peak time on the 133 route. It happens almost out of desperation and is because the operator is down maintenance workers, affecting the reliability of the fleet. That is the reason these things happen. I know they want to provide good services.

Mr. Hann made a point about congestion. It is absolutely clear to me that because of the 30 to 40 years of focus on cars, car dominance, urban sprawl and people depending on cars to get around, trying to retrofit a bus service that meanders in and out of ever-sprawling estates suits nobody. It does not provide a service for anybody when trying to provide a service for everybody. That is the difficulty.

One of the difficulties I have is with public representatives saying they want better public transport, better buses, better reliability and more services. They claim to be all in favour of public transport but do not agree with the road space allocation. I think a number of public representatives speak out of both sides of their mouth on this. They will go to the people who want to remain in their cars. There are always people who will want to drive and people who have to drive. However, there is a growing population of people-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am reluctant to interrupt the Deputy in mid-flight, but he might want to allow a bit of time for the various witnesses to respond to him.

Deputy Steven Matthews

I have one question for the NTA and I will get to that now. I cannot remember where I was in my rant.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It was a very good speech, I have to say.

Deputy Steven Matthews

Politicians need to be brave and need to say we need to reallocate road space for pedestrians, for vulnerable people who walk around our towns and for public transport. It is a climate challenge as well and not just a matter of how we are going to get around. We have to rethink it and politicians need to be brave and stand up and say that they support road space reallocation and public transport without adding on a "but".

I have a question for the NTA representatives on the planning process and planning system. A huge planning Bill dropped last week. I am sure everybody has had a chance to read it. We hear a narrative that the planning system is delaying infrastructural projects. It is important to clarify the difference between the planning of an infrastructure project and the development consent process, which is the planning process. Is the planning consent process delaying the putting in place of transport infrastructure?

Ms Anne Graham

The planning consent process is dealing with a huge number of planning applications – all at the same time, unfortunately. People say there are no buses for a while and that three then turn up at the same time. Unfortunately, three mega-projects are coming through the planning system at the same time: DART+, BusConnects and MetroLink. That is just in the transport sector. There are also the other planning consents that are required. The planning consent system has to deal with this. I am aware a large amount of additional resources were made available to deal with it. We hope the planning consent system will be able to deliver planning consents a lot quicker as a result.

In the lead-up, it is important that we continue to take time to plan properly, engage with the local communities we will be serving and ensure some consensus on the projects we are bringing forward before they reach the planning consent system. It is valuable to spend time doing that, but we would like to see a somewhat quicker turnaround regarding planning consents. We will see that now that the resources are in place.

Deputy Steven Matthews

Ms Graham is right. Often, what is seen as a criticism of the planning system is related to the fact that we have an under-resourced system that is overloaded. Very complex decisions have to be made and these involve many interactions and tight timelines. In this context, you end up with mistakes that end up in judicial processes. Resourcing the planning system is the solution to a lot of it.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I thank all our witnesses for attending and sending us their opening statements. I have several questions, so I might launch into them quickly.

That is very important information. I am interjecting because the clock is working against us. I have a few points. Are the cameras on the buses recording to devices on the buses or to a network controlled from one of the depots?

Given that Dublin Bus saw things kicking off in the city, what should have occurred? The Garda Commissioner is in another room saying no one could have foreseen how much the events exploded in a matter of a couple of hours, but, in hindsight, should the buses have been where they were at the time?

Mr. Billy Hann

When the Deputy refers to where the buses should have been, he should note they were following their routes, as one would expect. From central control, we were proactively managing where they should or should not go. We have access to Dublin City Council CCTV cameras, so we were keeping our buses and staff away from the affected areas as best we could. However, it is important to recognise the speed at which the events escalated. At the time, we had buses in the affected areas. Once the events escalated, we were trying to plot the safest route out for our drivers and buses. You could not avoid having at least a small number of buses in the situation they were in.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I accept that. Is the video footage lost?

Mr. Billy Hann

It is not. The CCTV coverage is contained within the buses, and the critical buses have been quarantined by and Garda and are being held by us. Five or six are in quarantine at the moment.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I apologise for interrupting again. I want to move on.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I ask that the matter remain under review. Nothing can ever remain static, including in political life.

I have questions for Ms Graham. We are talking about Dublin Bus services today. A large number of services originate in Dublin and travel to all parts of Ireland each day. Are one-day coach tours sustainable? I refer to the buses that line up along the quays of Dublin city centre, leave Dublin but no longer even stop in the west of Ireland. They only have what are called "photo stops" at iconic sites where the drivers stop for a while on the hard shoulder, which is not safe, to allow passengers to take a photo. The passengers on the tours have their breakfast and dinner in Dublin and do not spend a bob anywhere along the way. Surely that is not sustainable?

I will ask two final questions as the Leas-Cathaoirleach said that if I concentrated on speaking about Dublin, he might allow me an extra 30 seconds.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Deputy has strayed already.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I am bang on the money.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Deputy strayed out of Dublin a while ago.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Bus Éireann operates the 343 Shannon to Limerick bus service. The NTA needs to sanction increased frequency and more buses on that route because there a large population along the corridor and a number of refugee centres have been established in the last 18 months or so. The route in its current format is not sustainable. There is huge demand so we need more services.

I will address, as others have, the events of last Thursday. I was attending a function here that was cut short because of what was happening. The national Parliament is going to be a target for this kind of activity. Thankfully, it did not get that far in this case. I am very conscious of the families affected by the initial incident. I am sure everybody's heart is with the families of the people who were injured and the staff who were impacted by the activities. I am not sure if Go-Ahead Ireland had any services impacted by the burning of buses and so on. It was a traumatic evening across the city. The scale of it left people wondering where it would stop. Some staff in this building ended up walking home to Clondalkin and I am sure others ended up walking to other places. Visitors to the Houses, an elderly couple, were escorted on foot by one of our staff here to Phibsborough. While it is not a million miles away, that is not the easiest thing in the world for an older. There were also concerts in the 3Arena on the night.

I fully accept that buses were being diverted, that Dublin Bus did not know how to contain the situation and that the safety of staff and passengers is paramount. I know of somebody who was in Cornelscourt and the bus had to pull in on the N11. Passengers were told they could travel to the end of the route but they could not return. It would have been helpful if they had been able to come back into Dublin as far as Donnybrook bus garage with passengers coming the other way. I hope these activities never happen again.

I agree that safety is paramount, as it is when there are red weather warnings, but an awful lot of people were very discommoded. People who are not of Irish birth had to walk through certain areas and they felt more vulnerable than they would have otherwise that night. The only way for them to get home was to walk. One can walk a bit one way or the other but people are on their own when walking and taxis were never going to be able to cope with the level of demand. This is something we need to consider. Witnesses can respond to that in a moment. I am not being in any way accusatory or aggressive but, from a customer point of view, an awful lot of people were stranded in an awful lot of places. I do not know who was performing at the 3Arena on the night but I think it was generally attended by young people so thousands of cars ended up descending on the area to pick up people, causing further traffic congestion. I know Thursday night's events were unprecedented and I hope to never see them again. That is something for all of us to consider.

All of the statements contained a lot of positives, which is good. The committee acknowledges the positive developments such as an upgraded fleet and electric buses, which will be transformative in terms of air quality, noise reduction, etc. I am interested in learning what percentage of people use Leap cards. I am not trying to get rid of cash but I am interested in learning how much cash versus card is being taken because clearly the Leap card is a much more attractive option in terms of the cost of fares.

On Dublin Airport, there are no representatives of Aircoach present. Some of the witnesses are familiar with Aircoach. I know of people who have tried to board an Aircoach at 4 a.m. and were told the seats were pre-booked only and they should get a taxi. Perhaps Dublin Bus will consider providing a commercial service to Dublin Airport or increasing its services to the airport. I am not sure if Go-Ahead Ireland has any services that stop at the airport. Representatives of Dublin Airport appeared before the committee last week. Car parking is a challenge. The number of people using the airport is phenomenal. I have taken an Aircoach bus and used the 41 and 16 services which travel to the airport using the bus lanes. I have seen bus lanes full of taxis, which is another challenge. I am not saying we should get taxis out of bus lanes. How do we handle bus services if bus routes are full of taxis? It must be challenge. I ask Mr. Hann and Ms McKay to give an insight into how much congestion is caused by taxis.

Go-Ahead Ireland gives the NTA the fare box and it is paid to run the service. Is it the same system with Dublin Bus? That question is for the NTA.

I welcome the new routes, including in my local area. I was a bit disappointed that Goatstown was not mentioned. Monkstown, Kilmacud and everywhere else were mentioned but Goatstown was left out. The S4 and S6 are in my area. I did not receive a map but I found one online. Maybe there could be more communication about these routes because there are lots of new connections, some of which involve a transfer or change.

On the real-time passenger information, RTPI, service, does Dublin Bus or the National Transport Authority manage that? I think the information service has improved but I am not sure who operates it.

A representative of Go-Ahead Ireland addressed the CPC issue. That seems to be a no-brainer. You can drive with the piece of plastic but not without it. A driver who has passed the test and done everything required will wait on the post for the bit of plastic to arrive. Maybe there is a mechanism in legislation to allow a digital version to be sent immediately. Something must be done. It seems daft that staff are being paid to sit around waiting for a piece of plastic to arrive. I understand the concept of the CPC and why it is necessary. I have given a long speech. I ask the witnesses to address those points.

I ask the representatives of Bus Éireann to elaborate on how much the school bus service costs. Many people in Dublin think school bus services are for people outside Dublin and that people in Dublin can get services on Dublin Bus, Go-Ahead Ireland or whatever services. What is the level of dedicated bus service provision in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, south Dublin, Fingal and Dublin city. Perhaps Ms Graham will comment first.

Ms Anne Graham

I will work through the Chair's questions.

On the Leap card usage generally, we have approximately 90% usage.

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

It went up a great deal when the TFI 90-minute fare was introduced in Dublin. It is very high in Dublin now, at about 90%. Outside of Dublin, it is lower than that but is climbing all of the time.

Ms Anne Graham

With regard to serving the airport in general, that is a key demand node for services and for travel in general. It is both our and the airport's ambition to increase the number of public transport services going into the airport. Part of BusConnects has an improved service going into the airport in respect of one of its spines but there are also additional services to serve locally into the airport. As we roll out BusConnects, that will form part of our delivery of improving the services into the airport.

I found it online but I was not really aware of it until I saw buses going places I had not seen before with new letters and numbers. I thank Ms Graham.

I call Mr Hann to reply now, please.

Mr. Billy Hann

I believe Ms Graham has addressed many of the points which have been raised but I will pick one or two which are specific to Dublin Bus, particularly the situation we found ourselves in last Thursday. When it comes to crisis management or any sort of incident or situation, we always review that after the incident. We will do that not just within Dublin Bus ourselves but in consultation with the NTA. A meeting has already been organised for next week to look at that.

It is important to stress that safety of our drivers and customers is absolutely our number one priority. A very close second is moving our passengers, looking after them and getting them to where they want to go.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We are all on that same page.

Mr. Billy Hann

That was at the forefront of our minds during all of our crisis management sessions when dealing with that particular issue, so much so that we did go for that initial cordon of 1 km. We were conscious that people needed to get out of the city. We are also conscious and were advised by An Garda Síochána that some of these people were coming into the city on our services. That added another complication with regard to the decisions we had to make.

In addition to that, we had three buses which were burned to the ground. We had drivers being pulled off buses. All of that was in the mix and we had no real feeling that this was being contained and if anything, it was spreading and was possibly spreading to the suburbs.

We also had concerns about the safety of our depots. We must remember that we have a number of depots in very close proximity to everything that was going on there so we were very concerned about those.

Returning to the opening statement, we were really left with no choice other than to withdraw the services but we did not initially fully withdraw them. We withdrew them to a particular point and then we were very much left with no other option but to then fully withdraw them. That was done in full consultation with An Garda Síochána, with the National Transport Authority and with other operators during crisis meetings which were being held by the NTA at that particular time.

As to whether we can learn lessons from it, we will absolutely look at that in great detail and if there are lessons to be learned, we will certainly learn them.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I thank Mr. Hann. I am not sure if I have any other points which Go-ahead Ireland may wish to respond to there. I welcome the new routes which are operating in my area and wish the company well with them.

With regard to last Thursday, was Go-Ahead Ireland affected as much, and perhaps not as much because this company covers the orbital routes rather than the radial routes?

Ms Dervla McKay

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. A couple of our Dublin commuter services were affected. A small number of vehicles were essentially trapped on the north quays for quite some time. Thankfully both the vehicles and our colleagues were able to come out of the area in the early hours of the morning. One of our coaches was painted with some graffiti but relative to some of our fellow operators, we were fortunate, which perhaps is the wrong choice of words, but it certainly could have been much worse.

We suspended services short of the city quite early on in the evening and as the situation was developing, and information was that the situation was still not under control, we started to suspend services throughout at around 10:30 p.m., when we started bring the services back. It was then very much about ensuring that as things calmed down, that we had the confirmation that the city was indeed safe again to be in operation. I have to say that our team worked tirelessly through the night to ensure that the next day we did not miss a beat. I am thinking particularly about those colleagues who may have been uncertain about coming into work the next day. They very much pulled together. I believe it was Deputy Matthews who said earlier that with regard to running public transport services, no one goes in with the intention of not operating a service, or not operating it well, and that was very much true last Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday morning, when everybody did pull together. On Friday, the services ran really well.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is something we all hope will never happen again. Again, on behalf of the committee and on my own behalf, I thank everybody in the public transport system for all they do, including, to be fair to any taxi drivers who are looking in, where there was a great number of taxi drivers who were doing a great deal of work, and had to do a great deal more work because of what was going on, and probably took a great deal of risk in doing so. Many of them may be new Irish also, or not originally from Ireland, who might have felt quite vulnerable on the night that was in it. From my perspective, I certainly want to thank everybody involved in the delivery of public transport, bus operators, the NTA itself, Luas operators, and equally, those involved in the taxi industry.

Speaking to Mr. Kent, may I ask about the Dublin Bus school bus issue?

Mr. Stephen Kent

If I may, I want to record our own thanks also because we had many services coming from the regional areas into Busáras, and all of the other places. We were very thankful for the support of all of the people in the National Emergency Co-ordination Group, NECG, who were informing both the NTA which was co-ordinating the calls, and colleagues all around the table, who were co-ordinating. It was tremendous in advising people. It shows that it works and that there is good coordination there. We were well served.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We were very lucky that it was not worse than it was, even though it was terrible.

Mr. Stephen Kent

It passed off, for us, thankfully, without incident, even though we curtailed services.

Senator Timmy Dooley

It is always members who are first to speak in the committee but I will let Senator Clifford-Lee in as soon as the members have been exhausted, along with Deputy Paul Donnelly. Our next contributor from within the membership of the committee is Deputy Duncan Smith. He has ten minutes.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I welcome Ms McKay to her first meeting of the transport committee in her relatively new role. I have a lot of questions so I will just rattle through them. My first one is for Ms Graham. When will the rail fare structure be announced for the new Dublin commuter zone? I think it was due two weeks ago. Does Ms Graham have any update on that?

Ms Anne Graham

We hope to announce it very shortly. We are just working through our budgetary situation at the moment so it really depends on what budget we have available to us next year.

Deputy Duncan Smith

Okay. I thank Ms Graham. I wish to raise a couple of route issues with the NTA, Dublin Bus and perhaps Bus Éireann. A couple of issues have been raised about the existing 41C service to Swords. On 25 and 26 November, it appeared on the app on time but then it suddenly disappeared. This has not happened a lot on the 41C up until this year. It does not seem to be affecting the other 41Cs. Those dates are the most recent examples and near to the start of the service as well, on the northern end, not at the River Valley end where there can sometimes be a delay coming through Swords. I ask that it could be examined.

In terms of services that need improvement, I ask the NTA to look at the 33D service. The bus is full in the morning before it even reaches Donabate village. There probably needs to be a second service there. The train service is at capacity in the north county and we need the bus services, which are doing an awful lot of the heavy lifting in terms of transport for the area. The 33D probably needs another service. Could Dublin Bus examine how the 33D service matches up in the evening with the trains arriving in Donabate? The NTA, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead have been very flexible in the past in ensuring that the services between the bus and train match up and a bit of work needs to be done on the 33D.

There used to be two 32X routes and then during Covid there was one in the morning and one in the evening. That is a route that is well used by Malahide and Portmarnock people and it goes all the way to UCD. It would be very welcome if a return of the second 32X could be examined.

We have a strange situation whereby due to the flow of buses, people in Portmarnock find that getting the bus to Malahide train station is easier than getting the bus to Portmarnock train station. That is an issue that needs to be looked at. If we had a second 32X service that would take it out of the equation for a lot of people.

My question for Bus Éireann relates to the 101 service. It arrives full at Balrothery at peak times in the morning. We have raised the issue previously. It would be most welcome if it could continue to be looked at.

I will move on to some more general policy issues.

On the roll-out of Bus Connects, what is the policy of the NTA when major news organisations report factually incorrect details about the network, such as saying to people who have disabilities that they will have to take three buses or it will take an extra hour and a half when that is plainly not true? That may also be across multiple sources. Is there a strategy for tackling that misinformation when it comes to Bus Connects?

Ms Anne Graham

I will start with the last question. It is difficult for us to counteract any misinformation that is done in advance of the services. We would like for the services to speak for themselves, once they are implemented. Generally, we find that there can be a bit of noise in advance because when people see a service is going to change, they do not put that with the existing services and that, by interchanging, as well as the fact there is the TFI 90-minute fare, it could actually make their journeys shorter. The best thing for us to do is to make sure that, with our operators, we deliver those new services and let those services speak for themselves.

We will take away all the issues the Deputy raised, look at them and we can respond to him on each of those. We know there are capacity issues across the network and we acknowledged that earlier. We will look at it and, if there is a requirement to increase capacity, we will do that if we can get both the financial and staff resources to be able to deliver those.

Deputy Duncan Smith

In relation to the Dublin Marathon, Dublin City Council and the marathon organisers have urged a re-examination of the event’s location due to the impact it has on transport. Will the NTA be engaging with that? For me personally, having the marathon going through the city and presenting the city in such a way is a very positive thing. I am interested in the views of the transport companies. Of course, public transport is vitally important for participants and supporters to be able to get to the event itself. If any of the witnesses has a comment, I would appreciate it.

Ms Anne Graham

Again on the subject of misrepresentation, our position on the marathon has also been misrepresented. We are very supportive of events in the city and we work with both operators and event organisers to ensure the impact on public transport is limited as much as possible and that, where we can, we deliver additional services to serve those events. The issue we raised with the marathon organisers was regarding the location of the start and the finish of the marathon. Where it is located and has been located for many years is on a major public transport route. It is the matter of the time they need to build the infrastructure in that particular location that is what is having an impact on public transport. We asked them to consider an alternative location just for those areas, not to move everything out of the city centre, which is how it is being represented. That is not our position. We want to work with the marathon and Dublin City Council to ensure we can keep public transport moving right up to the event, ensure the diversions are in place, and inform the public as much as possible so they can access the city during and after the event.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I have two last points. I very much welcome the progress that has been made on the electrification of the fleet. It is great to see it; you can see the vehicles.

I have raised before and continue to raise the issue of access to buses for wheelchair users. Much good work has been done, such as the standardisation of new bus stops and ramps for getting onto the buses. Yet, with the best will in the world, there is still only space for one wheelchair at any given time on a Dublin Bus or a Go-Ahead Ireland bus. As we go into the future, technology will not make wheelchairs any smaller, and people in the disability sector will say that. Communities of people with disabilities in individual towns can be quite tight. They will be in contact with each other to say one of them will be getting a certain bus one day, such as the 10 o’clock bus, so if another person is further down the route, he or she will not be able to get on that bus. It is that level of planning that is involved. When we are looking at fleet provision into the future, perhaps we could look at providing as much space as possible for people with disabilities and wheelchair users.

It is great to see progress being made in terms of staffing and recruitment. The visible campaigns across Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland have been there for all to see and we are in a much better space. What happened last Thursday in Dublin makes that very difficult. All companies before the committee, as well as the Luas, are very proud of their diverse workforces. I can only imagine how difficult it is for any non-white workers in those companies who either are existing front-line transport workers or who are planning to go into the industry. Do any of the representatives have a comment on what that challenge has been like since the riots? Has anything extra needed to be done for the non-Irish workforce, such as comforting them and making them feel more secure? Has there been any impact in the past week in terms of service provision based on that?

Mr. Billy Hann

I will bring in my colleague, Mr. Quinn, in a moment with regard to some of the details of some of the questions the Deputy asked. It is important to let the committee know we have a comprehensive process in place for examining complaints from customers and their representatives. We take them in via email, formal complaint forms or Twitter, and we do a full investigation of any concerns raised. When we feel there is merit in furthering that investigation, we would consult the National Transport Authority on what the potential measures could be to address those concerns, and we then respond to the individual or their representatives, which we have done in the past and will continue to do. I will bring in Mr. Quinn on some of the specifics of the routes, and then I will come back to address some of the other questions that were asked.

Mr. Gareth Quinn

I will speak on the three routes the Deputy mentioned. I will investigate what the Deputy said about the 41C on 25 and 26 November and either I or our department will give him an answer.

Regarding the 33D, as Mr. Hann has said, we have a very robust set-up with the National Transport Authority. We have weekly meetings and we call it business as usual. We have a log for anything that is brought up by an elected representative or a member of the public, who have plenty of ways to get in contact with us, and even by our own staff. When you are on the front line, you actually see things, and our staff are really good at bringing out and telling us. We as garage managers and area managers then go out, stand at the side of the road and have a look at it. I can say that the 33D is right on the list. We will be looking at it and doing a business case for it, if need be. I will certainly give the Deputy an answer for it.

The same is the case for the 32X. I will have a look at that. Either way, the Deputy will get an answer for it. We will make sure we discuss it with the authority.

Mr. Billy Hann

There were a couple of other matters that were raised by the Deputy. With regard to the issue of accessibility, 100% of the Dublin Bus fleet is accessible. Approximately 88% of our fleet has a wheelchair space and a buggy space, and both of those can be used for wheelchairs if the buggy space is available. We have an assisted travel programme, which we are very proud of, and we have had more than 1,800 assists this year alone. This is basically to work with people with disabilities to ensure they have as comfortable a journey as they can. We will also have a workshop later this week, on Friday, with Spinal Injuries Ireland to speak to it and get its concerns and issues. As a matter of fact, some of us will go down O’Connell Street in wheelchairs to get a feel for what it is like for them. It is something we take very seriously and work very hard with those groups to address.

The point the Deputy makes about the non-nationals working in our organisation is incredibly important and came into the decision we had to make to withdraw service in full. We have more than 78 nationalities working in our organisation. There is no doubt they were nervous last Thursday night. Again, that was part of the decision-making we had to take account of it when we were withdrawing the service, or at least partially withdrawing it in the initial phase.

From helping those employees, it is all about communication. We have been reaching out to all our employees, not just those who are non-nationals, and offering them and advising them about the employee assistance programmes we have in place to help them as best we can. Local managers are aware of this and are briefing and helping staff as best we can. There is no doubt about it. We had a number of our members of staff did not turn up for duty on Friday morning because of their concerns and nervousness around that. We will work closely with them to try to get them to a stage where their confidence is good enough to come back into operation. I hope that addresses the Deputy’s questions.

Deputy Duncan Smith

I thank Mr. Hann. On those areas I raised, so much work has been done. I do raise issues, but the service we get is excellent.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I thank Deputy Smith. Our next contributor is Deputy O’Rourke, who has ten minutes.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank all the witnesses for their statements and engagement so far. On my own behalf, I extend my solidarity with the front-line workers and thank them and the witnesses for everything they do and continue to do.

Okay. There are a few County Meath-related queries I have raised previously with Ms Graham but they keep coming up. One of those issues is access to Dublin City University. The 109A used to go there several times a day. There is significant demand for it. The current provision causes significant inconvenience, especially now, with students attending Dublin City University but living at home and the prospect of people potentially providing accommodation in their homes. I ask Ms Graham to address the possibility of reinstating that direct route to Dublin City University.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I ask about driver numbers.

Mr. Allen Parker

In Broadstone, we are ahead with regard to driver numbers. We had a strong recruitment campaign. For the first time in Broadstone we are training B licence car drivers up to D licence. We have the driver headcount in Broadstone. Drivers in Broadstone are not the problem; rather it is vehicle availability because we do not have enough mechanics.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

I commend all of the workers and drivers who experienced that horrendous, disgraceful event last Thursday. We often see on social media that drivers - in particular those who are non-Irish nationals - occasionally experience abuse, which is absolutely to be condemned.

I have one question I wish to raise, which is related to buses being told to skip bus stops. This has been particularly bad in the Ongar area, which is in my constituency in Dublin West, in the past while. I have spoken to bus drivers and union reps who have confirmed this. I wish to give the witnesses a flavour of what people are telling me about it. I rang Dublin Bus today and the representative told me that when traffic is bad, the 39A bus starts in Hartstown and does not serve the Ongar loop. They said that this allows the bus to catch up to the original timetable by leaving out half the stops. They said it is a one-off, but it has been going on for weeks. I will give another example. I stood on the Ongar route in Allendale and four buses did not show up. Two weeks before that, five 39As passed which were out of service. It is the same in the afternoon coming home from work on the 37, 39 and 39A. They all come to stops packed because buses are not showing up and with all the kids coming from school. Another example was in the early morning. It was the same thing – a cancelled bus. I am sick of it. It is bitterly cold out. There were a number of incidents of this nature in Ravenswood on the Ongar loop - I was waiting on the bus and it was cancelled - in the past few weeks. I waited 40 minutes on Saturday evening for the 39 from town. When one was due, it changed to a 39A. Why does it seem to be more important to be seen to be on time than to pick up people who are standing at bus stops along the entire Ongar loop? The area that seems to be particularly badly hit is from the Hansfield area, which is where the terminus is, right up to Beechfield into Littlepace down by Castlegrange and then down towards Allendale. It seems to be that is the most affected part. Bus drivers are being told to ignore and leave all those people at the bus stops, who need to go down towards either St. Joseph's or, if it is the 39A, in towards the Hartstown area. Why are we leaving people at bus stops? Why is it more important to be on time?

Mr. Billy Hann

I will come in. I thank the Deputy for his question. I might bring Mr. Quinn in as well. Whether it is Ongar or any other area, when it comes to the question of trying to keep on schedule or skip some stops to get on schedule, those decisions are never made lightly and are basically always made in the context of the bigger picture to try to keep punctuality across the whole network. We would seldom ask a bus driver to pass by stops if those stops were not going to be served by other buses behind that one, or buses coming from another area. Generally, those bus stops will be served by other buses and we are trying to get those buses back on schedule to serve the rest of the customers downstream.

That being said, we are absolutely happy to look at it from a capacity point of view. I do not have the details on the 39A and what the issues on capacity might be, but I am happy to take that offline and look at it. Mr. Quinn might have some more colour on it that I am not too sure about.

Mr. Gareth Quinn

I live near Ongar in Blanchardstown so I know it well and I was the area manager there. As Mr. Hann said, the decision is not taken lightly. Some 24 buses go out on the 39A in the morning and go up and down all day. If one goes out of sequence, a gap is created. Somewhere along the line, you have to get it back on sequence, no matter what. Everybody else after that then benefits from it all the way through. It is a 24-hour service, so that bus could be out for the next 21 hours. You need to get it back on track. One could say that we could move up a bus or whatever but you have to get them so they are operating within service.

Second, as the Deputy knows, the 39 is a half-hour service during the day whereas the other service is ten or five minutes or whatever. If something happens to a plain 39, because it is a half-hour service, if you do not cover that departure, you are leaving an hour's gap for people down Shelerin Road or Clonsilla Road. Therefore, you might take a 39A and move it across purely for the customer benefit. It is not done lightly. We want all buses to operate as per timetable and departure. However, someone somewhere has to make a decision. It is not about leaving people on the side of the road; it is for the betterment of the vast majority of people.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

The consequence is that people are left on the side of the road. One can see from those comments that many people are being left behind. The particular area that seems to be the most badly affected is the Ongar area, and that needs to be addressed.

I got a couple of comments from the bus drivers and union reps. First, there used to be what are called “universal buses”, which would be able to slot in and fit into the holes. I can understand we are under serious pressure regarding that but their understanding of it is that the reason there are no universal buses is because they will not be paid for by the NTA. Second, buses used to be bumped up. For example, if a bus had to pass for whatever reason, the next bus would be told to take off. However, now they are told to wait until the scheduled time to take off. It seems the priority is to keep the schedule on time and ignore all those people who are standing and waiting for the bus and who could be waiting a very long time for that bus.

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Regarding universal buses, we have a robust relationship with the authority. If any route throughout the whole network requires extra or double resources at certain peak times due to capacity, we raise the issue and make a business case. The authority has been very forthcoming in covering that and we have universals throughout our network. All eight garages have operating universals that the authority paid for. I cannot speak to what a rep or whomever said, but I disagree with that point.

Regarding the schedule, the customer always comes first, no matter what. It is an easy take to say that we will leave people on the side of the road and we do not care. However, we do care. I think I speak for us all. We have heard it from minute one of this meeting. None of us want to leave anybody on the side of the road - absolutely not. Decisions are made and people have to make decisions on the basis of what is best for the majority of customers.

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

On the 33X, there is demand everywhere, in particular from outer Dublin, for services at peak times. I will make the point, as has been made a few times, that funding is a constraint. Buses are a constraint, drivers are a constraint and unfortunately there is a queue. We will take it into consideration along with Mr. Quinn.

Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

As a former member of the local authority, my area was indeed that route from the Belfield campus to Cabinteely church so I know the N11 very well. It was probably the most successful pre-Luas route. People do not remember that there were many challenges when the quality bus corridor, QBC, went through Donnybrook village in 1999.

I am sure 95% are fine, but perhaps a reminder would be useful. Today, one bus passed me very tight on the cycle lane. There was a bit of space on the other side that it could have been in. I felt the driver was not aware. I am not having a go at anyone. People can be busy and distracted. However, a bus is a large vehicle to have beside you when you are on a bike. You realise how vulnerable you are relative to a vehicle of that size.

Deputy James O'Connor

I am conscious that today's discussion does not necessarily pertain to my constituency, so I will be brief. We have a room full of people who had to deal with a very difficult situation last Thursday. For the workers and passengers involved, it was not a pleasant experience. I wish everyone well in the work that needs to be done as a result to improve safety to some degree. Without going into it too much, I want to say in solidarity with the workers involved, it was a horrendous situation to deal with. In the past, I have asked whether there could be some system to improve on security alerts, because it is hard for anyone to make a decision to withdraw services without direct advice from An Garda Síochána. The State agencies present should not have to make that call. That should lie with An Garda Síochána. That needs to be tightened up to keep everyone safe, to be frank.

I have two questions for Mr. Kent. We have seen a huge increase in the uptake of public transport services in my area, east Cork. After the pandemic, the figures for regrowth have been strong, which is great. Things such as traffic congestion and the increase in the cost of motoring in the past two years, which have been exceptionally high between insurance and fuel, have meant that many people have been trying to find better ways to get to and from work. Thankfully, Bus Éireann services are extremely popular, especially with students and people who work in Cork city. However, we have an issue in Youghal, County Cork. We are crying out for a double-decker service in the mornings. It would be a huge improvement to our local bus services. I hope that could be taken on board and looked at. We would appreciate that.

Between Ballygiblin-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I do not mean to cut the Deputy off, but a vote has been called in the Dáil.

Deputy James O'Connor

That is fine. We have six or seven minutes. I will motor through it.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I just want to make sure the Deputy is aware of it.

Deputy James O'Connor

Yes, I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach.

We will suspend for a few minutes because of the vote in the Dáil. If it was different, I could have reorganised but I was not sure a vote was going to happen.

Sitting suspended at 3.48 p.m. and resumed at 4.05 p.m.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Apologies for the interruption, which was due to the Dáil having to vote. It is an important part of what they do. I call Deputy Matthews.

Deputy Steven Matthews

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to come back in again. I want to ask about bus stops and bus shelters. I think we amended the planning laws recently so planning permission is not needed to relocate a bus stop. I want to ask about the process for adding a new stop along a route. I can think of examples in my own constituency where there have been a lot of developments and there will be a spine road and a bus service along it, but the new houses are quite a distance from the nearest bus stop. I want to know what the process is for adding new stops. I suppose it depends on population density. Is there a ratio of population density in regard to spacing between bus stops? In general, what is the process that I, as a public representative, should go through to ask for a new bus stop to be considered?

When adding a new bus stop, what is added on in journey time to service that bus stop? It would probably be different for peak and off-peak, but I know that for rail timetables, the delay to the service caused by a stop will be added in.

Has anybody in the bus companies, the NTA or elsewhere done studies on what people deem to be an acceptable walking distance to a bus stop from their homes? I am sure that would inform where bus stops are located.

Bus shelters are very expensive and every time we ask about shelters, we kind of go round in circles with the local authority, the NTA and so on. Is there a simplified, standard and not high-cost bus shelter that we could roll out quickly across the country? More people are using public transport and we want to make it comfortable for them. They do not have to be big, flashy bus shelters but just something functional. I am particularly thinking about the rural Local Link routes.

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

The process for adding a new stop is based on population. If we get a request, we will assess it on the basis of whether there are people nearby and if it is possible to walk from nearby to the bus stop. We need to get local authority approval for the stopping place, we then design the bus stop and we ask one of our contractors to build the bus stop. That can take a lot longer in rural areas than in urban areas because of the need to sometimes build a hard stand or even acquire land to provide the stop, which can also be an issue.

In terms of the journey time impact, that will vary depending on how many people are using the service, the boarding time and so on. For example, it is quicker to board Dublin Bus services than Bus Éireann services at the moment for ticket machine reasons.

In terms of walking distance, in urban areas and continuously built-up areas, we tend to space bus stops around 300 m to 400 m apart. The outside walking distance limit for bus is about 400 m, which is half what it would be for rail. People are much more prepared to walk to rail and Luas than to bus, so there is typically an 800 m catchment for Luas and rail but only 400 m for bus.

Low-cost shelters are something we are looking at, particularly in rural areas. We are hoping to roll those out, with local authority co-operation, as much as we can around the country in the near future.

Deputy Steven Matthews

I want to follow up on the point on local authority approval.

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Planning permission is not needed for bus stops but it is needed for certain bus shelters. It is not needed for bus stops and it is really just a safety issue and whether the local authority engineers consider it safe or not.

Deputy Steven Matthews

Does Mr. Ryan consider that if we were to remove the planning requirement for shelters, the same as for bus stops, that would speed up or help the process?

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Equally now, with more congestion. I know, for example, that in Ranelagh, which does not have a bus lane but has a clearway, the minute that clearway is gone at 10 o'clock in the morning it is full of cars. I know that the 11, which is one of the routes, struggles in the evenings around 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock because there are drivers bringing people Chinese takeaway. I understand it all but it makes it very difficult for the service to negotiate a very narrow strip of roadway when there is parking that is, possibly, legal-ish one side of the road or for certain times of the day but probably not legal at all on the other side but there is parking there because it is 8.30 p.m. on a Friday night.

Does Mr. Hann find that there is a lot of congestion, particularly during the day? I get the idea of discipline and the 24-7 bus lanes but if somebody wants to use the Morehampton Road at 8 o'clock at night and use both lanes rather than one, and there is an awful lot of bus congestion, so be it. I think those areas, towns and villages and strips of road where has a bit of priority in the morning and evening and not much during the rest of the day must make Dublin Bus's timetable reliability quite difficult. Does it?

Mr. Billy Hann

Certainly from a Dublin Bus perspective - and I assume it is the same for all operators - if we had dedicated bus corridors, provided they are not being congested by people who should not be in there, we can get predictability on our services and into the traffic patterns and run times of those buses. The unfortunate part is we do not have enough dedicated bus corridors and our buses are generally in traffic with everybody else. As we all know, the difficulty with that is that certain routes could maybe be done in 15 minutes in a particular period of the day, and that could be over an hour at another period of the day. We are trying to develop profiles and run times for buses based on that variable, and it is extremely difficult. As a result, picking a time that actually works from a punctuality point of view, and trying to hit all our bus stops and times, is really difficult.

If one takes the rail network, which is on a fixed network and is free for them to go and do what they need to do, that is what we would like from a bus network in an ideal world.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is, to a certain extent, that Dublin Bus has in the large part. I remember being on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council at the time when Dublin Bus took the 46A out of Monkstown Farm and Stillorgan village, it made a much better passenger experience for everyone who was not trying to use Monkstown Farm or Stillorgan village. Most people were accommodated by various other routes and options, like the 4, the 63 and so on. It made the route a more efficient and predictable one because there was that bus priority pretty much the whole way from the church in Foxrock in the case of the 46A. Further out in the case of the 145 or 155, the whole way in as far as when one hits Leeson Street, one engages with a level of congestion even if there is bus priority. I know BusConnects has a solution proposed, and Ms Graham might let us know when the diverting of car traffic away from the end of Leeson Street towards St. Stephen's Green might be happening.

With regard to Dublin Bus's requests from the committee, it is more bus lanes, including dedicated and all-day bus lanes if we could call them that, and then from the NTA more funding to resource all of this. It will not work without buses. I would make the plea that Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead, or whoever, would look at more capacity to the airport, whether it is funded bus services or otherwise. It is crucial, as numbers are where they are. It is really important for modal shift and that we do not have everybody driving to the airport. The capacity is struggling, and it is something that we saw in our interactions with Dublin Airport last week, where it was certainly talked about.

I thank the witnesses for all they do. Ms Graham might come back to me on the Leeson Street point but if there is anything else she wants to say to us or ask from us, please do.

Ms Anne Graham

BusConnects Dublin was about not just the network but also the infrastructure to support the efficient operation of services, trying to reduce journey times and making the services more reliable. On where we are with regard to that part of the project, we are rolling out the network but at the same time we have lodged our planning applications for all 12 of the corridors. They are going through the planning process. We hope that we will receive a positive response on a number of those this year in order that we can start construction on at least two of the corridors this time next year. That is our ambition. We are waiting to see whether we can get those planning permissions and then, on a rolling basis, deliver that infrastructure across the next decade, when we will build it all out. In the meantime, any improvements that we can make on bus priority, even that which is not on those corridors with regard to bus priority through signals, we will work with the local authorities to deliver that.

Regarding the city centre plan, the bus corridors are until one gets into the city centre. The work we are doing with Dublin City Council on the city centre plan is looking at how we can improve the movement of buses through the city centre. That plan was published for consultation by Dublin City Council. It will have received a number of submissions and it hopes to complete that either later this year or early next year. There will be a move to implement some of the recommendations there, particularly on the quays, which will assist with bus movements as well.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I see Deputy Lahart has arrived. We are due to finish in one minute. I do not have an awful lot of wriggle room, as the room has to be available for another committee quite shortly. I want to thank everybody for their contributions so far. If Deputy Lahart has a 30-second point to make, I will let him make it but I am unfortunately not in a position to give him ten minutes.

The joint committee adjourned at 4.35 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 6 December 2023.

Joint Committee on Transport and Communications díospóireacht - Wednesday, 29 Nov 2023

Bus Services in Counties Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow: Discussion

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Billy Hann

Ms Dervla McKay

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Billy Hann

Ms Dervla McKay

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Mr. Billy Hann

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Ms Anne Graham

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Stephen Kent

Mr. Allen Parker

Mr. Allen Parker

Mr. Billy Hann

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Ms Dervla McKay

Ms Dervla McKay

Ms Dervla McKay

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Mr. Gareth Quinn

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Mr. Jeremy Ryan

Joint Committee on Transport and Communications díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 29 Nov 2023