Where subsidised transport runs like clockwork

PD Transport spokesperson Senator Tom Morrissey, in his letter on the Dublin bus service (Irish Examiner, August 23), ignores the central issue in the current dispute by making a fumbled and inaccurate defence of his party’s fanatical commitment to privatisation.

The issue is this. Six years ago the Government committed to supplying another 200 buses for Dublin. The Government promised, in the national development plan, that Dublin Bus would be expanded to meet the growing demands on the company.

The money to supply these buses is there. The plan for their deployment is there. The problem, as admitted in the Government’s progress report published in July, is that the PDs refuse to allow the money to be spent until 25% of Dublin Bus routes are privatised.