Rhetoric won’t get buses to run on time

WHILE the debate about commuter services in Dublin is generating a lot of bluff and bluster, the facts, sadly, are lacking from both sides of the argument.

Deputy Sean Crowe of Sinn Féin complains that Dublin Bus is suffering from a lack of investment and a below-average subsidy. What percentage of revenue is provided by the exchequer, what would he like it to be, and why?

Senator Tom Morrissey of the PDs argues that the company is too inefficient to merit further subventions without competition.

How inefficient? How is it calculated, and what should the subvention be?

Surely somewhere beyond their ideological parapets there are European examples of efficient bus services in similar sized cities with which we could compare. Neither seems to have a vision of a coherent commuter service, but both are happy to shoot salvoes from their entrenchments.

I feel Senator Morrissey’s position is merely a pragmatic realisation that the Government is unable and unwilling to tackle vested interests in the various State sectors in return for union compliance in national wage agreements.

Is increased efficiency and flexibility not one of the criteria for these deals? Despite this, commuters are regularly held hostage to ‘unofficial’ wildcat strikes, most recently in Cork.

At least treat us long-suffering, cattle-trucked commuters as adults — give us facts and drop the infantile rhetoric.

Mark Daly

Castlefield

Clonsilla

Dublin 15