Transport strikes ‘will cost taxpayer €1m per day’

A SERIES of CIÉ strikes to begin next month will cost the taxpayer over €1m a day in lost fare revenue, Transport Minister Seamus Brennan warned yesterday.

Raising the stakes in his standoff with unions over the breakup of the company and the liberalisation of Dublin’s bus market, Minister Brennan told the Dáil Transport Committee he was disappointed at the decision to pursue industrial action.

The reform plans include the elimination of the CIÉ holding company and the introduction of a bus regulator to oversee the liberalisation of the Dublin bus market.

The first of a series of six strikes begins on July 18, when workers will refuse to collect fares. The one-day strikes will be rolled out over the summer and into the autumn.

The unions are concerned that the minister’s plans would lead to job losses, an erosion of workers conditions and a deterioration in the service provided to the public.

However, Mr Brennan has asked CIÉ staff to consider the implications of their actions.

“The protest action on July 18 will result in a direct revenue loss of €1.1m for the CIÉ companies and to this must be added the cost of the six further days of industrial action already announced and the longer term cost of customers who permanently desert public transport,” he said.

Minister Brennan said he wanted to see greater accountability and customer responsiveness in the public services provided by CIE.

“There is always a concern where there is a monopoly provision that the organisational imperative takes over from the service imperative, that the needs of the organisation get confused with the needs of the public, or worse that the public interest becomes subordinate to that of the monopoly itself,” he said.

Challenging the minister, Labour’s Rosin Shortall said it appeared he had an ideological hang-up about the public service.

But Mr Brennan said CIÉ was spending €10m a week in taxpayers’ money and insisted on improvements in the way CIÉ is run.

“The key ingredients in delivering public services should be quality, customer focus, accountability and value for money,” he said.

Legislation paving the way for Mr Brennan’s plans will be introduced in the autumn at the earliest and the new bus regulator will immediately follow.

According to plans laid before yesterday’s Oireachtas Committee yesterday the new bus regulator will focus on planning services and awarding franchises covering 25% of the current Dublin Bus routes.

Although not envisaged for the near future, Mr Brennan said all public transport outside Dublin should also be subject to independent economic regulation.