Bus numbers just don’t add up

Many facets of Irish society have become imbued with a delusional sense of personal entitlement to a standard of living that is neither sustained by underlying economic fundamentals, or bears any rational relationship to the value, or contribution, that they provide in return — and that especially includes politicians.

The National Bus and Railworkers’ Union (NBRU) strike at Bus Éireann is also an apt illustration of this.

The business of Bus Éireann is divided almost on a 50:50 basis between the provision of school transport services, which currently requires the services of slightly more than 500 part-time bus drivers. Over the decade to the end of 2011, the number of journeys on school transport dropped by 8% and the number of part-time drivers employed by the company dropped by 8%.

However, the remainder of the business comprises scheduled services in provincial cities, Expressway and point-to-point. The annual number of passenger journeys on these services has dropped by a cataclysmic 27% from 50.22m in 2077 to 36.5m four years later, a level of trading that has not prevailed since before 1998. But the number of people employed to operate these services only dropped by 5% to 2,103, while their net average pay increased by 10.8% in the period since 2007. Does this indicate that there are a substantial number of underemployed personnel at Bus Éireann?

The collapse in demand for Bus Éireann services has coincided with the annual State subsidy to Bus Éireann being increased by 99% in the decade to the end of 2011, to almost €44m. How can the claims of the striking NBRU members to preserve income and the chaos they are inflicting be reconciled with maintaining job numbers at Bus Éireann, while the travelling public are clearly opting for the products and services of alternative suppliers?

Why should the State continue to operate a subsidised bus service for which the demand has fallen away so severely that the viability of the business is unsustainable without extravagant subsidies? Taxpayers are being asked to maintain living standards at that company that are unaffordable by them, while the value proposition of private companies is clearly more appealing to consumers. What future does Bus Éireann therefore have other than becoming a social service for NBRU veterans?

Myles Duffy

Glenageary

Co Dublin