PLANS TO reduce the Dublin Bus fleet to save money are “quite extraordinary and highly illogical”, the Consumers’ Association of Ireland said yesterday.
Siptu will meet Dublin Bus tomorrow and Bus Éireann next Tuesday to discuss plans for the two semi-State companies. It has been suggested that Dublin Bus will reduce its fleet by more than 100 buses and cut some 200 jobs.
Siptu sectoral organiser Willie Noone criticised Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey yesterday for comments he made about the need for changes in the CIÉ companies.
He said the Minister’s comments were unhelpful, coming before the union’s meeting with the companies. “Noel Dempsey’s comments have really sparked a high level of apprehension among our members,” he said.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, Mr Dempsey said this year’s deficit at CIÉ could reach €90 million “despite the fact that this year I succeeded in getting over €313 million of State subsidies, taxpayers’ money, into the company”.
Mr Dempsey said he could not comment on planned cuts but he had asked that peak services be protected. “I don’t get into the day-to-day details of what the company has to do. That’s something that’s going to have to be worked out in talks between the unions and the company themselves. I know that it’s the desire of management . . . to minimise whatever losses there might be.”
However, he said he hoped that CIÉ would be carrying more passengers at the end of this year than last year. “When the recession is finished we will need a very, very strong public transport system.”
Consumers’ Association of Ireland chief executive Dermott Jewell said it was difficult to see how passenger numbers could be increased while consumers were being denied bus services.
“We have so many conflicting messages,” he said. People were being told to use public transport yet the cost of using these services was increasing rapidly and now those very services were under threat.
“Reducing operations is so regressive. It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It’s pushing more cars back on to the roads.” He said he feared that older people would be worsthit, if off-peak services were reduced.
Labour Party spokesman on transport Tommy Broughan described the reported cutbacks as “a devastating blow” for commuters and said they were coming months after the Dáil transport committee recommended that the Dublin Bus fleet be expanded by 350 buses.
Fine Gael’s Seanad transport spokesman Paschal Donohoe said cutbacks would “cripple” Dublin and suggested that private bus operators be allowed to take on the axed Dublin Bus routes.
The Senator also called for a financial review of Dublin Bus, which would include selling off unused assets.
