Commuters will again face chaos today as 200,000 bus users struggle to cope with the effects of the threatened strike by drivers at Dublin Bus.
While the Garda and Dublin Corporation yesterday made plans to help keep traffic flowing today and tomorrow as more cars pour into the city, business interests in the city centre predicted that millions of pounds would be lost for each day the buses were out.
Many primary and second-level schools are on a mid-term break so this will help reduce congestion. Some schools will resume tomorrow, while others are closed for the week. The length of the mid-term is at the discretion of school managements.
For the two days of the strike, gardai will allow motorists to use Quality Bus Corridors and bus lanes. This situation will be reviewed if a union proposal that some buses will run without charge in the rush hour is adopted. However, there will be no parking in bus lanes.
A Garda spokesman in the traffic section said if the strike went ahead there would be added resources around the city to help keep traffic moving. These would included extra traffic motorcyclists and foot patrols.
A Dublin Corporation spokesman said all normal parking regulations would be in place. The only exception would be that the three-hour limit in pay-parking areas would not be enforced. Drivers would not be asked to move after three hours but would have to pay for the extra time. Meanwhile, business interests in the city centre were last night predicting a serious drop in sales if the bus strikes continued.
The president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Mr Hugh Governey, said a survey of member retail companies undertaken after last week's one-day stoppage had shown cuts in sales of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent.
"Some £2 million to £4 million could be lost to retailers in the city if the planned two-day bus strike goes ahead," he said.
Retailers had said in the survey that last Tuesday was a very poor day. Another day or two like that would be very unwelcome for such a slow month and would reduce figures further.
Mr Governey added that such stoppages seriously affected the drive to encourage people to use public transport.
The Small Firms' Association warned that the impact of the bus strike would result in millions of pounds of lost business.
Its director, Mr Pat Delaney, said: "Small businesses will once again be the main sufferers as striking bus drivers cause misery for 500,000 workers. Business losses in the city centre will run into millions of pounds as people stay away because of lack of public transport."
He said the impact on businesses was likely to be felt throughout the two days as employees were late arriving for work and may have to leave early. A 10-minute delay amongst Dublin's 500,000 workers would represent an overall loss of over 8,000 working days each day the strike continued. With the one day last week and two this week, this would mean an estimated cumulative total of 24,000 lost production days.
The Labour Party spokesperson on transport, Mr Emmet Stagg, accused the Government of indifference to the plight of commuters. He urged Dublin Bus management to agree to the offer by the unions to take the buses out at peak time today and tomorrow without collecting fares.
"Commuters are effectively being abandoned as neither the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, who has responsibility for public transport, nor the Tanaiste, Mary Harney, who has overall responsibility for labour relations, seems prepared to take any action to try and secure a settlement to this dispute," he said.
The Dublin City Centre Business Association said in a statement that the entrenched position of the unions and the difficulties of management, confined by national pay guidelines, were once again making victims of the long-suffering public dependent on a public transport monopoly.
