Bill will not open Dublin bus market

THE DUBLIN Transport Authority Bill has nothing to say about regulation of the Dublin bus market, the main workhorse of the public transport system in the region, Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said yesterday.

Acknowledging that it can take a private sector operator up to two-and-a-half years to get a decision on a route licence from his department, Mr Dempsey said changes in the bus market required alterations to the 1932 Transport Act that were not included in yesterday's Bill

The bus service in Dublin - supplied by Dublin Bus and a handful of private operators - currently provides more than 160 million passenger journeys per year, in comparison to about 30 million each for Luas and Dart.

Mr Dempsey is the third successive minister for transport to defer a decision on opening up the market to substantial private sector competition. The Minister recently announced he was undertaking a review of the fleet usage by State company Dublin Bus. His predecessor Martin Cullen announced a review of that company's routes. Mr Cullen's predecessor Séamus Brennan had announced a review of arrangements to provide Dublin Bus with new buses, because of possible breaches of EU competition regulations.

Private sector bus operators have complained of the uncertainty, with Antóin Ó Lachtnáin, owner of the Swords Express, which operates a licensed route between Swords and the city centre using Dublin Port Tunnel, saying he wanted to buy a number of additional buses at about €400,000 each. He said uncertainty about the regulatory environment made such investment difficult. The application process for his first licence took 2½ years.

Exasperation has also been expressed by the operator of the Patton Flyer, which runs between Dublin airport and Dalkey without the benefit of a route licence.

Commenting yesterday Mr Dempsey said these were "problems in the 1932 Act which were not dealt with in this (DTA) legislation." He accepted the legislation "urgently needs to be dealt with and will be dealt with. I will deal with reform of the 1932 Act once I have this particular piece of legislation in place," he said.

But Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd said: "The immediate priority for the DTA must be to free up Dublin's bus market in order to provide short-term relief to hard-pressed commuters with new and more frequent bus services. Fianna Fáil has reneged on this measure for the last 11 years, to the detriment of the travelling public."