Paul Murphy: Go-Ahead Buses Failing Riders Across Routes

Thanks very much. In the last two weeks, I have been inundated with complaints about go-ahead buses not showing up. I've spoken to my colleagues, Councillor Conor Reddy in Ballymun Finglis, I've spoken to Deputy Boyd Barrett, who represents Dun Laoghaire, and it's clear to me it's not just an issue in Talla or in Dublin South West. It's the same story everywhere that go-ahead have a contract to operate bus services. The S6, S8, N6 and N2, all with the same terrible service. I'm not talking about a ghost bus here or there. In some cases, half the buses have been cancelled, leaving people late for work, for school and for college. Cancellations and ghost buses have been an ongoing issue with these privatised routes. But in the last few weeks, it has gotten absolutely ridiculous. I'll give you some examples of people who have contacted me. One person says, my 14-year-old son gets the S6 bus service from Rathfarnham to a secondary school in Booterstown every day. The service has been appalling ever since we started using it in 2023. It is often cancelled, sometimes consecutive buses, and the following buses are therefore full. As you can imagine, this leads to extremely long waiting times and lateness for school. In the last few months, the service has deteriorated even further. It has become utterly unreliable as a service. I have contacted go-ahead several times and have received no response at all. A UCD student contacted me to say he was late for lectures three days in a row because of cancellations, delays and overloaded S6s that didn't stop. He says, many young people like me are considering buying cars because public transport is so unreliable. Another parent contacted me to tell me that she had to pay for her daughter to get taxis to her college exams because, quote, we don't trust the buses to get her there on time, if at all. Once her daughter gets her driver's license, she says, I don't see why she would ever use a bus again. The S6 from Tala to Black Rock and back again is the route most often reported to Dublin Enquirer's no-show bus tracker. The NTA's own statistics show that one in three S6s failed to arrive within seven minutes of the advertised departure time. It is no coincidence. All of these testimonies, all of these complaints, are about privatised services operated by go-ahead, more concerned with making profits than providing a decent, reliable bus service. The latest excuse is that they don't have enough mechanics, so that's why the buses are out of service. But why don't they have enough mechanics? Because they have worse terms and conditions than Dublin Bus, so they understandably can't attract mechanics. And why do they have worse terms and conditions? In order to maximise profits at the expense of workers and passengers. The government's response has been to repeatedly fine go-ahead for its terrible service. In 2023, they were fined 3 million euros. Go-ahead said that the problem was staff shortages and promised to rapidly recruit more staff. But here we are again, almost two years later. What is the government's response? To give them more routes. Last month, the NTA gave go-ahead a new 50 million euro contract to operate an outer Dublin metropolitan area bus service from next October. They might leave their customers waiting. But you can be sure that their shareholders will not be left waiting for dividends. Will the government instruct the NTA to give go-ahead routes back to Dublin Bus? Commit instead to investing the billions of euros instead of pursuing privatisation, invest the billions of euros from the government's surplus and the Apple tax money into improving and expanding bus services and also investing in desperately needed new public transport infrastructure like Metro North, Metro South West and additional Lewis lines. Thank you Deputy Minister Sean Canney. Thank you very much, Ken Corley. First of all, I would like to thank Deputy Murphy for raising this very important topic, which I am taking on behalf of Minister O'Brien this evening. From the outset, I would like to clarify that the Minister for Transport has a responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport, but neither the Minister nor his officials are involved in the day-to-day operations of public transport. The statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally rests with the National Transport Authority, or the NTA. The NTA works in conjunction with the public transport operators who deliver the services and have responsibility for the day-to-day operational matters, in this case, go-ahead Ireland. That said, I would like to reassure the Deputy that the Department is strongly committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic, sustainable mobility options, and public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal. To support this objective in Budget 2025, the Department of Transport secured £658 million for funding of the Public Service Obligation, the PSO, and TFI, the Local Link Services, an increase from £618 million in 2024. This includes funding for the continuation of the 20 per cent fare reduction on PSO services, the young adult card on both PSO and commercial bus services, and the 90-minute fare until the end of 2025. Funding has also been secured to extend free child fares on PSO services to include those aged between five and eight years, and to support the rollout of new and enhanced bus and rail services under the programme such as Bus Connects and Connecting Ireland. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government recently committed to improving public transport under the new programme for Government, securing Ireland's future, and is backing up that commitment with significant investment across the bus and rail network. I understand that the Department of Transport is engaging with the NTA regarding the issues of concern, particular bus services operated by Go Ahead Ireland across some of the Greater Dublin area routes. The Department has been advised that Go Ahead Ireland is currently experiencing fleet reliability issues across the network of services due to a shortage of availability of mechanics to carry out essential maintenance works. This is, unfortunately, having a knock-on effect on the delivery of services, resulting in a reduced availability of vehicles and a disruption to service levels. These fleet reliability issues are affecting primarily impacting on routes S4, Liffey Valley to UCD, and S6, the Square Tallade to Black Rock, as well as some of the routes in the Bray and Greystone areas which were launched on 26 January as part of the rollout of the latest phase of the Bus Connects Dublin. I acknowledge the concerns that the Deputy has raised about these services and fully appreciate how frustrating it is for users. The Minister for Transport understands the importance of maintaining connectivity for all users and I want to assure the Deputy that I have been advised that the NTA is closely monitoring the situation with regard to service delivery on these routes and is receiving daily reports from Go Ahead Ireland on service availability by route and progress with resolving these issues. I have been advised that the operator has indicated to the NTA that there have been significant improvements in dealing with these issues and that the service will continue to improve over the coming days. I have also been further advised that the NTA has requested that her immediate plan be supplied from Go Ahead Ireland, outlining details of when services are expected to return to a full timetable. Thank you. Deputy Murphy. Deputy Murphy. Thanks Ken Corlowe and thanks Minister for the answer. I obviously accept that the Minister for Transport is not involved in the day-to-day operation of public transport services. I am not holding the Minister personally responsible for any bus not turning up. I am not holding the Minister personally responsible for any bus turning up. At the same time, you refer to the Government's recent commitment to improving public transport under the new programme for Government. The issue underlying here is a policy choice. It is a policy choice of pursuing privatisation of public transport routes, in this case, routes formerly done by Dublin Bus. That is why we have the crisis in terms of the S4, in terms of the S6 and so on. On the NoShowBus.ie, you will see that between October 16th and December 3rd, public transport users reported 48 ghost buses on the S6 route alone. Like you said in your response, the issue being reported is the fleet reliability issues across the network of services due to a shortfall of the availability of mechanics. But why are they having that problem and Dublin Bus is not? The answer is very, very simple. They can't recruit mechanics because Dublin Bus offers better terms and conditions. So if you are a mechanic, you make the entirely rational and entirely reasonable choice to go and work for Dublin Bus and not therefore for Go Ahead. And who pays the price for that? The workers who are ending up with worse terms and conditions in Go Ahead and the commuters who are trying to use public transport. I heard the Taoiseach earlier on refers to something the opposition has been fundamentalist in terms of ideology. But it is the most fundamentalist neoliberal ideology to think that we just need to do this somehow. It clearly does not work and a different policy decision should be made to get rid of the privatisation and bring the routes back in house to Dublin Bus. Minister, please. Thank you, Deputy. I want to assure the Deputy that I fully recognise that transport connectivity is hugely important to the people who live, work and study in Ireland and it is key to revitalising our villages and our towns and urban centres. We need to expand the public transport network and increasing services levels as outlined in policies like Connecting Ireland and Bus Connects. We aim to achieve more balanced regional development and greater connectivity for all public transport. Bus Connects has achieved significant success in transforming Dublin's public transport network. In the latest progress report published in July 2024, comparisons were made for the network redesign phases 1 to 5A before launch from Q4 2019 and after launch from Q4 2023. The programme has led to substantial increase in service levels and customer satisfaction research carried out earlier this year shows that phases 1 to 4 of the network redesign project are positively rated by users. The research shows that 80 per cent of users are satisfied with the service and 49 per cent reports the service is now better. Just on that matter, I think it is important from my point of view that anybody who uses public transport get a good experience so that they will continue to use it. When issues arise they have to be treated seriously and that is why I thank you for raising the issue. But I do believe that the NTA and the Department of Transport will continue collaborating with operators and customers to enhance the punctuality and reliability of the services throughout the network redesign. As I mentioned earlier, I have been advised that the NTA are working closely with Go Ahead in Ireland to identify steps that can be taken to improve service delivery on the impacted routes and that some improvements have already taken place. Further, through initiatives like the Capacity Improvement Programme and the implementation of ticketing technologies, we are taking steps to enhance capacity and improve the overall experience for passengers. Thank you, Minister. On behalf of Minister Ryan, I would like to thank you Deputy Murphy Murphy for raising this very important issue. Thank you. Thank you.