Bríd Smith criticises NTA and Bus Connects over accessibility

No, I am taking more than him, it is my privilege, my right, I am taking more than him, I am only joking, but I am, thanks Chair and I want to thank Sinn Fein for putting this motion, it is good to have the opportunity to talk about this hugely important issue and it is evident from all of the deputies that have spoken in the House that we do have a problem with the delivery of public transport, people do not make up these stories and moan about the NTA or the bus connects or the trains just for the sake of it, these are real issues for the people that we represent in our constituencies. The first issue in the motion I want to just mention is the question of access and disability access, this is, as has been said by many here, a hugely important issue and we have seen so many people facing barriers to access to public transport, broken lifts at DART stations, limited wheelchair spaces on buses and trains and on DARTs and Lewises, having to give 24 hour notice before you can journey in order to have a ramp in place. These are real live issues for people who struggle at the best of times with their mobility and I have to congratulate the Access for All campaign, many of whom I know, but they are parents of people with disabilities and people with disabilities themselves who are doing the most that they can to shine a light on this very, very important issue. The second thing I want to talk about, it's not really explicit in the motion but it's hinted at and it's been hinted at here all night, is the role of the NTA themselves, the National Transport Authority. You see, I worked on the buses, I worked for Dublin Bus and I remember there was a constant attempt all the time, through the state, through the governments of the day, to privatise the public transport system. It was a mantra, I have to say, particularly of Fine Gael, they really wanted to see privatisation in public transport and they were met with huge resistance, mainly by workers like myself and the good strong trade unions that we had. But the NTA were brought in specifically to privatise, to bring in privatisation, that's the only role they ever played and they have this elaborate structure of competitive tendering, just like we have for offshore energy, for renewables, for our hospitals, for everything we do. A very neoliberal idea, that the only way we can deliver services is by privatising some of them and looking for the lowest tenderer. And when you get the lowest tenderer, you get a company like Go Ahead, a British company who are renowned over there, if they'd only done their research and found out, for treating workers poorly, for paying them poorly and treating them poorly. And we have stories all around this house this evening about what's wrong with Go Ahead and I think there's a lot wrong with the NTA. And what they've done with Bus Connects, it's very interesting because from the time Bus Connects was announced, I as a councillor and other councillors and people before profit engage very strongly with them. Bus Connects will tell you this, we had them driven mad, going to all the public consultations, meeting them, having Zoom conferences with them. They produced these very elaborate, beautiful documents and maps and files that you could plug into a computer and you'd get all these interactive maps showing you how Bus Connects would work. I'd say there was millions, in fact I think I put in a PQ for the millions that was spent on just planning the Bus Connects thing. Now that we have it, great, and I do welcome 24-hour transport. I do welcome many of the spines that bring more frequency on the chief routes, say for example from West Dublin into the city. That's all very good. But what they do in the process of it is they bypass large working class areas like Lower Bally Firmish, which had the 79 bus for years and years, coming very frequently every 15 to 20 minutes through the area, picking up mammies and babies and people with wheelchairs and grannies and all sorts of people who needed the service. Genuine working class people who depend on public transport, who don't have the option of cars and who can't have the mobility to walk the 15 minutes out to the main road to catch the G1 or the G2. This new route is wrecking some of their lives, and I have reports of women who have tried to make it into work, and with the bottleneck of the 60 route that replaced it, first of all waiting for the bus to come, and secondly the bottleneck that's created in Kilmainham because of it, adding on 45 and 50 minutes to their journey, and many of them arriving so late into work that their wages are being docked. This is unacceptable, and what I would like to see from the ministers and those of you who are sitting opposite me here is that some instruction is given to the NTA that where it's not working they must try to fix it. And trying to fix it means consulting with local people, consulting with their representatives like us TDs here, they must try and fix it and they must listen. Because again, when I worked on Dublin Bus, we were consulted regularly as workers as to how the routes should work, because we knew what time the factories emptied, we knew what time the schools emptied, we knew what time the women came out to go into town to clean the offices, we knew when old folks would need the bus to get to the hospitals. There's no consultation with local people on these issues, there's a plan in the heads of these, and there's a layer of them, they come to the Zoom meetings, there's always different ones and loads of them, and they're hugely paid experts, and they can tell you about this route and that many kilometres and this, that and the other, and all the computerised technology that they have, but you've got to listen to local people to deliver a proper transport service. The last thing I'd like to do is to move our amendment on the question of free public transport. For years, People Before Profit have been championing the idea of free frequent public transport, and we have an amendment here that I'd like to move, and I hope Sinn Féin will accept it and will vote with us on it, because free public transport is not just as some neoliberals would say, oh, they want more stuff for free, and there go the socialists again, everything has to be free, but who's going to pay for it? Free public transport is actually a very modern, global and well-caught-on concept that is dealing, where it has been introduced, with reducing emissions, improving air quality, getting cars off the road, and it is a crucial tool in the kit for reducing CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. And we have to think about this, and we have to think about it long and hard, and that's why we're pushing it. It doesn't cost a hill of beans to introduce. At current levels, we'll be looking, because we've priced it and put it into our alternative budget on several occasions, you'll be talking about £600 million extra in the budget to bring it in now on the current level of transport. But, of course, transport has to be more frequent and more timely, more accessible, and definitely has to be democratised in consultation with the needs of local communities, not what's in the heads of bureaucrats who get good jobs in the NTA or transport for Ireland. There is a problem here, and I hope the Minister acknowledges that.