As 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.
Further, as part of the NTA’s contractual performance monitoring system with the operators, issues of poor reliability and punctuality performance can result in financial penalties for those operators. The NTA, as the independent Transport Regulator, does not seek my approval for imposing these fines.
In light of the Authority's responsibility in this area, I have forwarded the Deputy's question to the NTA for direct reply. Please advise my private office if you do not receive a response within ten working days.