COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 2 May 2024

Apologies have been received from Deputy Imelda Munster. You are all very welcome. I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are switched off or are in silent mode.

Before we start, I wish to explain some of the limitations of parliamentary privilege and practices of the Houses as regards the reference you make to other persons in your evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or those who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both constitutional and statute by absolute privilege. This means that you have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything that you say at the meeting. However, you are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure it is not abused. Therefore, if your statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, you will be directed to discontinue your remarks and it is imperative that you comply.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members are also reminded of the provision of Standing Order 218, that the committee shall refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or a Minister of the Government or the merits or the objective of such policies.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, is a permanent witness and he is accompanied today by Ms Paula O'Connor, deputy director at the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

This morning, we will engage with officials from the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the Department of Transport to examine Financial Statements 2022: National Transport Authority. We are joined by the following officials from the NTA: Ms Anne Graham, chief executive officer; Mr. Hugh Creegan, deputy CEO; Mr. Philip L'Estrange, director of finance and corporate services; and Mr. Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services. We are also joined by the following officials from the Department of Transport: Mr. Garret Doocey, assistant secretary; and Mr. John Boylan, principal officer. You are all very welcome. To begin, I will call on the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, for his opening statement.

The National Transport Authority, NTA, was established in 2008 and has evolved since then to undertake a wide range of statutory responsibility mainly related to public transport planning and funding.

The authority's income in 2022 amounted to €1.74 billion, up from €1.54 billion in 2021. The majority of the income comes from Exchequer grant funding. Other income included €252 million in fare receipts.

The authority's expenditure in 2022 amounted to €1.67 billion. Just under half of this, €809 million, was in respect of public service obligation, PSO, payments. These payments are made to the operators of public transport in respect of public transport services that otherwise would not be financially viable. The associated contracts with the operators set standards of operational performance and customer service, including fare setting. The contracts also allow for the authority to impose PSO payment deductions where the operators' performance does not meet contractual standards, or to make incentive payments where performance exceeds standards. In 2022, performance-related deductions applied to public transport operators amounted to just over €17.3 million, up from just under €3.8 million in 2021.

The second largest area of spending by the authority in 2022 was in respect of the provision of capital investment grants to a wide range of bodies. This amounted to just over €735 million in the year. In addition to the investment funding provided to other bodies, the authority invested €102 million in the purchase of buses that were added to its own bus fleet, which is made available to public transport operators. The carrying value of the whole bus fleet in the statement of financial position was just over €400 million at the end of 2022.

I certified the financial statements on 23 May 2023 and issued a clear audit opinion.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and committee members for the invitation to appear before the committee to assist in its examination of the financial statements of the National Transport Authority, NTA, for 2022. As requested by the committee's secretariat, we have furnished some information in advance.

To assist in answering the committee's questions, I am accompanied by three colleagues from the NTA, namely, Mr. Hugh Creegan, deputy CEO; Mr. Jeremy Ryan, director of public transport services; and Mr. Philip L'Estrange, director of finance and corporate services.

2022 was a year of huge significance for the authority as we guided the public transport system from a mini-lockdown in January to levels of passenger demand that had not been seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic by the end of the year. This required the continued focus and flexibility of both the NTA and the transport operating companies whose resilience had been tested during the pandemic. Government objectives that were announced for 2022, such as the 20% reduction on all PSO fares and the introduction of the young adult card which reduced fares for younger people in the 18 to 24 age group by 50% on PSO and commercial services, were implemented by the NTA during the second quarter of the year. These measures have made a significant contribution in encouraging people back to using public transport services. In fact, Ireland was an outlier in Europe in terms of the speed of recovery of its passenger numbers and now well exceeds pre-pandemic passenger numbers on our bus and light rail services.

However, the rapid recovery did lead to some challenges, such as the reliability and punctuality on PSO bus services. The authority acknowledges that this caused disruption and inconvenience to customers in the latter half of 2022. One of the main reasons for the drop in reliability and punctuality was the problems associated with recruiting additional drivers. The knock-on effect of the lack of drivers was service cancellations, which, in turn, affected reliability. It was also a case that due to the recovery in the economy from Covid-19, traffic congestion was causing significant issues, particularly in our urban areas, and this affected punctuality. That said, the authority, in consultation with the operators, worked extremely hard to resolve the issues and jointly ran a campaign to encourage more people to consider bus driving as a career choice. As the year came to a close, there were signs that the measures were beginning to bear fruit with reliability improving from its low point in autumn 2022. The focus on driver recruitment and the improving reliability continued during 2023 to the extent that the bus operations in Dublin are now at the contracted levels of reliability.

Planning for major capital investments in BusConnects, MetroLink and the DART expansion continued during 2022. Significant progress was made on all three major projects. The DART+ West railway order application was submitted to An Bord Pleanála for its consideration in July 2022 with planning continuing on other elements of the DART+ projects. The railway order application for MetroLink was submitted to An Bord Pleanála for its consideration in September 2022 and the oral hearing was completed by An Bord Pleanála in March this year. In respect of BusConnects Dublin, during 2022 we submitted six core bus corridor applications to An Bord Pleanála for its consideration. The remaining corridors were submitted for planning in 2023 and to date, planning permission has been received for four of the corridors. Work is now under way to commence construction on two corridors early in 2025.

In Cork, the first round of public consultation was held in 2022 for the sustainable transport corridors, which is part of BusConnects Cork. This consultation has continued for a further two rounds and will be finalised shortly.

In terms of key achievements in strategic planning in 2022, we completed and published the Limerick-Shannon metropolitan area transport strategy and the Waterford metropolitan area transport strategy. We also completed the draft greater Dublin area transport strategy 2022-42 and submitted same to the Minister for Transport in line with governing legislation which was subsequently approved in January 2023.

Our investment in active travel continued apace in 2022 with significantly greater than planned walking and cycling schemes delivered throughout the country with planning design commencing and continuing on many others. In 2022, almost €290 million was allocated to active travel projects throughout the State. This investment continues each year such that 750 km of cycling network has been delivered since 2020.

In 2022, procurement commenced on the next generation automatic vehicle location, NGAVL, system and on next generation ticketing, NGT. Both projects have now successfully completed their procurements and are in the implementation phase. The NGAVL project will support better management of the reliability and punctuality of our bus systems as well as improved real time passenger information. NGT will see the further development of integrated ticketing to an account-based system that will support cashless bank card payments.

Our bus network redesign continued in 2022. Two phases of the BusConnects Dublin network redesign were delivered. The G spine and route 60 and the N4 and N6 routes commenced operations in May and October, respectively. Driver and mechanic shortages have impacted the pace of the delivery of the BusConnects Dublin network. However, a further phase was delivered in two parts in 2023 with another planned for later this year. As can be seen from the briefing material, the passenger growth on the new BusConnects services is far higher than on the services where no change has been made.

Our Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan commenced implementation, with phase 1 of the plan delivered in 2022, bringing a range of new routes and improvements to public transport users throughout the State. Over 100 new and improved services delivered under Connecting Ireland to date have led to an eightfold increase in the number of passengers using public transport in rural areas.

It is important to once again acknowledge that the authority received significant additional Exchequer funding during 2022, in particular to address the increased cost of delivery of PSO services and the shortfall in fare revenue. In terms of our funding and expenditure, the authority has been strongly focused from the outset on ensuring we have robust financial and audit controls bearing in mind the scale and range of the authority's financial activities.

I welcome any questions that members of the committee may have.

Before I bring in the first speaker, I will ask Ms Graham to clarify a matter. I acknowledge that she sent to the committee extensive briefing notes and previous correspondence. We have received information regularly from the NTA. As of June last year, €116 million had been spent on MetroLink. Is that correct? That is not a mistake. That was in June 2023.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I am looking at the growth of the organisation since 2019. It went from an expenditure of €600 million to more than €1.6 billion. It is right to acknowledge at the outset some of the NTA's achievements, particularly the bounceback of figures on public transport post Covid. Ireland was very much an outlier in the European sense. If one lives down the country the eight-fold increase in passenger numbers on rural public transport is very palpable. Living in Waterford, as I do, we see those Local Link buses and their usage. I will come to the matter of the question about their visibility in terms of bus stops later in the questioning. However, it is right to acknowledge that some very good work has been done in recent years.

That growth obviously comes with growing pains so I will begin with the issues of staffing and consultancy costs. I understand the NTA currently employs 261 staff and it is trying to do a recruitment call for 90 staff. The number of people outsourced for business as usual at the end of 2022 was 97, going by the figures I have. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the growth of the organisation over the four years, it is creaking at the seams a little in terms of core staffing. Will the witnesses give me the current standing for that?

As of this month, we have an actual head count of 286 permanent employees. We have sanction for up to 390 staff. For this year, the NTA has received an additional sanction to hire 90 staff and we have some backlog of backfill staff to recruit also. Altogether, this year we aim to advertise and recruit for 104 additional NTA employees, which will help to alleviate that position on outsourced placements that are placed into the organisation.

The outsourcing number for specific projects is 160. If we look at the three categories together, comprising 160 for project outsourced placements, 115 for core day-to-day outsourced placements and the 390 staff we now have sanction to recruit, we are looking at a total figure of 665 staff, of whom 275 would be outsourced placements.

On average it is approximately two and half times more expensive to have an outside placement with the authority. Part of that is down to different pension arrangements. For example, the NTA pay cost does not include the State pension scheme. A VAT rate of 23% is also included in the outsourced placements costs. The model we have is we are trying to move to an 80:20 ratio of NTA employees to business as usual-type roles we outsource. That gives the NTA a level of flexibility if there is a downturn and so on. In relation-----

It is worrying from a value-for-money perspective when I look at the staffing cost. My other issue relating to the outsourcing of staffing is that I, as a member of this committee and a Member of the Oireachtas, do not have a great line of sight in terms of value for money. The Department surely has a role in this. I do not have a good line of sight in terms of the competencies being employed into it and we are not getting that retention within the knowledge base. I will talk about staffing in local authorities as well. I much prefer the idea of increasing our capacity as a State and then keeping that knowledge in-house. When we outsource this, I do not know who is doing the design work or whatever else in these consultancy firms and it contributes nothing to the knowledge base in terms of what we are trying to build.

Yes. I think we would agree. The NTA was very appreciative of the additional sanction we got for this year to hire an additional 90 people. As part of our strategic staffing plan we submit a five-year outlook to the Department each year and we focus in on key knowledge areas that are important to retain in the organisation. In terms of the day-to-day outsourced roles, by the end of this year that should move to more of an 80:20 ratio, which is appropriate. On the project roles, we are also cognisant that many of the projects have finite lives over time.

Just to dig down into the next layer and into the local authorities, I am aware that active travel teams are being built across most of our local authorities and there is good investment in it. I have a worry about the competencies. The NTA's briefing note states it is worth noting that the NTA recommendations for staffing arrangements for the active travel teams in each local authority specifically included technicians and junior engineers to enable in-house design work to be undertaken. I support that but I do not see place-making or behavioural change, which I think are key roles in active travel schemes.

Leaving that to one side, does the NTA have a good line of sight of the money going into local authorities to deliver active travel schemes? How much of that is subsequently being outsourced? I have a good idea of where that stands in my own local authority but does the NTA have a national picture? Again, I have a worry that we are putting a lot of money into active travel but a lot of it is getting bounced out into consultancies. I do not know who is doing the design work there. I do not know what their pay and conditions are. I do not know what their competencies are and I am not necessarily always enthused by the quality of work that comes back from them.

We do have good visibility of what the local authorities are spending, certainly in terms of their own staff. As regards consulting resources, we can get the information. We do not get it reported at a granular level. On average, as an indicator approximately 15% of the cost of the active travel projects we do goes on external consultancy resources.

We have some data. I am saying that from some knowledge of a number of projects, which represent reasonable examples of what occurs in projects. It is worth knowing that the cost of designing some of those active travel schemes is more than it would be for simple road schemes. At some levels, they are far more complex. You are dealing with the urban environment and everything from the positioning of a pedestrian crossing to where the traffic pole will be and all those things. There is a-----

I am aware of it, but it is all the more reason to build up the in-house competencies. We have a lot of schemes coming back as if they are dropped from space, whereas a local engineer would be able to make impactful interventions in schemes, without necessarily the level of engineering that is going into them.

I will move away from active travel and to the matter of buses. I will talk a little about integrated timetabling. I lived in Germany in 1999, which was, God help us, in the previous millennium. I lived in a very small village, which was about 10 km from the local railway station. Any time I got off a train, I walked out the front door and got onto a bus seamlessly. It was integrated and planned to happen. The bus timetablers had talked to the rail timetablers. I do not have a sense that, particularly Bus Éireann, Local Link and Irish Rail, are talking to one another in a way that I would like. The NTA is the linchpin in that. Will one of the representatives give me an outline of what the NTA is doing in trying to integrate those timetables?

We have been working with Irish Rail on this as a starting point to look at what we can do about introducing more clock-face type timetables, on rail in particular, as a starting point throughout the country, as best we can on the network we have. The reason for that is if we can get clock-face, predictable arrival times, be they half hourly, hourly, two hourly or what have you, at railway stations, we can integrate bus with rail much more efficiently and straightforwardly because bus services will not have to work around an unpredictable rail timetable. We are at the first stage of that integration work. We expect to see that Irish Rail, in a week or two's time, will submit draft timetables, which will be going out for consultation later in May. We will not get everything we want in this stage but we will see how we get on with the initial stage.

It is so important, as the NTA knows. It is when people will actually make their modal shift. If we plan them as active travel nodes so that a person can cycle safely to them, there are good lock-ups, and they walk onto a bus or whatever, which then connects to the onward service, that is when it will really make a difference. The death of modal shift is spending 40 minutes standing at the famous Limerick Junction, with the wind cutting you in two.

I have a bunch of questions I will return to in the next round, on real-time updaters, bus stops and, God help us, bus stops in rural settings, but I will put a couple of questions to the Department on the public sector performance reports. Looking at its key performance indicators, KPIs, on cycling infrastructure, we do a lot in terms of measuring kilometres, but we do not seem to do a lot in terms of monitoring use. I worry that confuses two things. It incentivises building a convenient cycling route out in the middle of nowhere. We could all probably think of examples. My other concern is around two of the NTA's key impacts, namely, the number of people walking into Dublin city centre as a percentage of modal share and the number of people cycling into Dublin city centre as a percentage of modal share. My question on that is obvious. Those are very Dublin-centric KPIs. What does the Department plan to do? I point out, and this is not to do with walking and cycling, that the earliest train that will get you from Kilkenny to Waterford arrives at 9.45 a.m. The earliest train that will get you from Clonmel into Waterford is 11.30 a.m. A lot of our transport systems seem to be very efficient at getting people to Dublin. The two KPIs I referenced are about how we get people around Dublin. There is life outside the Pale. Is the Department considering changing these KPIs to reflect that?

I thank the Deputy. He made two fair comments on those particular KPIs. On the first he mentioned, kilometres, it is important we keep a focus on delivery in terms of the number of kilometres we are delivering. He is also right to highlight the fact that we do not want isolated cycle tracks leading from nowhere to nowhere. It is more about the network these days. We need to get a balance between keeping an eye on the number of kilometres we are delivering but perhaps that might be best situated within the development of the networks. We will certainly take that away and reflect on what exactly would be an appropriate KPI on that one.

On the Dublin-centric nature of the second KPI, I agree completely we need to look at that and have a change. We have, thanks to our NTA colleagues, with the expansion of the walking and cycling index, potential to look at the other cities. We can also look at census data and develop a KPI more generally, rather than just that Dublin focus.

I welcome the NTA representatives back. I thank them very much for their engagement and for the briefing material they supplied.

I will focus on something we raised when they were here last year, namely, real-time information, which the NTA addressed in its annual report. It calls them disappearing buses; I call them phantom buses. Some fees have been levied at some of the operators, in particular Go-Ahead. It did not necessarily improve all its routes - I think it has ten - but it is a serious problem. At a time when we are trying to incentivise people to use public transport, real-time information is simply not working on some of the routes. To focus on Go-Ahead, at the time, the NTA told me it was engaging with that specific operator and fines were being levied, as I said. However, some of the routes, such as the No. 63 route in particular, are simply not working. I asked for figures for complaints the NTA received, which it sent on. I thank it for that but I shudder to ask for the figures again, although I will do so. I want to compare the volume of complaints the NTA is receiving as an organisation with the engagement it is having with that specific operator.

We have a serious problem on our hands if commuters cannot rely on public transport, especially when we are saying there is real-time information and people are looking at the screen, but the bus simply disappears from that screen. I am sure the NTA will agree with me that it is not acceptable and should not continue. How will we address it?

I will start. I might ask my colleague, Mr. Ryan, to also respond. I do not think the focus should be on one particular operator because this is an issue for all bus operators in ensuring they deliver the services they are contracted to deliver. It is incumbent on those operators, if there is cancellation of a service or they curtail a service, to take the real-time data out of the system so that cancellation does not appear on the real-time system. Among other issues, we have been working with operators on to ensure they do that. It is an operational matter.

We acknowledge that in 2022 many cancellations occurred because of the lack of drivers. Some operators that had a significant number of services found it very difficult to do those cancellations because of the volume of them. We are not in that situation now, thankfully. We are at a level where the level of cancellations is a lot lower and closer to the contractual norms or what is expected of operators. However, there are occasions when, if a driver or vehicle is not available, cancellations have to occur. The follow-up by the operator should be that it takes that trip out of the automatic vehicle location, AVL, system, which means it does not turn up on the real-time system.

I appreciate why Ms Graham does not want to focus on one operator, but the area where I live has quite a high level of the routes that Go-Ahead operates so she will forgive me saying that I receive many complaints about that particular operator. When I raised it last year, the reason given was Covid. I understand it is now recruitment issues. I appreciate that is a real issue right across various sectors in society at present. However, it is not simply about the display of real-time information but, rather, the dependability and reliability of a public transport service.

What is the timeframe after the NTA meets them? Last year fines were applied and so forth. How often do those meetings take place and are they on the basis of the level of complaints? Mr. Ryan also wishes to respond. Will the witnesses forward a note on the levels of fines being issued, especially around route 63? I could name a whole host of routes, but I will not as I have limited time. Perhaps the NTA could revert to the committee.

We can give a lot more detail on that.

The other aspect we have to consider is punctuality. The route the Deputy referred to and some other routes do not have the level of bus priority required to ensure that a reliable journey time can be delivered. Traffic congestion impacts on reliability, especially the punctuality of services. What we have to do with our operators generally is to review the journey time of those services. For example in Cork, the journey time of the 220 service has increased as a result of traffic congestion, which has meant it has not been as reliable as it could be. We have had to put additional journey time into that service, but that did not increase the efficiency of the service. That costs €1.5 million per year, because of the level of road congestion.

I thank Ms Graham. I have three minutes left. Mr. Ryan might send on a note on that. We did not get to him.

I asked a parliamentary question on the Aircoach route 702 a few months ago. My understanding was that Aircoach would operate a 24-hour service from the airport - it does not matter whether it is once or twice an hour - but it has become a 6 a.m. to 8 p.m route. Passenger capacity at Dublin Airport has been increased. This service is a route through Dublin all the way to Greystones. It is not as good as it once was. My question at the time was whether it was being explored to bring in another operator to fill the gap and how long it would be sustained. From the complaints I have received, it appears the service does not address the demand after 8 p.m. What will the NTA do not only about the 702 route, but also about other routes where an operator applied stating it would provide a certain level of service and is not doing so? It has changed its mind. The demand exists. Is the NTA reviewing that?

When a commercial operator looks at the services it will provide and seeks a licence, it makes a commercial decision on whether the demand is there to operate that level of service. Aircoach has made a commercial decision that the demand is not there for it to be able to operate after 8 p.m., based on the demand it estimates. That is the decision. If an operator reduces its services, there is nothing we can do under the licensing system to be able to force it to operate when it estimates that there is no commercial demand.

Therefore, a service provider can tell the NTA initially that it will have a longer service, and then reduce it after a few years of operating the service. Is the NTA not concerned that from an international airport, we do not have a multitude of possibilities for the public to use public transport?

There are plenty of PSO and commercial buses that serve the airport from there.

We will not be in a position to provide a direct service from Greystones after 8 p.m. to the airport. That is not the priority in terms of funding-----

Ms Graham can see where I am coming from. A provider applied for a licence to operate a service. It got the licence and then, since the Covid-19 pandemic, reduced the level of service. It did not return to the level it was once at, and then it disappeared. Is that not of concern to the NTA? Would it not explore putting on another service if another application is made? I do not know whether one has. That does not bother me. Has the NTA explored offering a service from the international airport in Dublin to various locations?

It is open to everyone and anyone who sees a commercial business opportunity to provide a service from the airport to other locations in the city, or outside the city, to come forward with an application. We do not limit the licence applications. We assess whether the licence application can support the overall growth in public transport services. We do not like to see a reduction in a public transport service. Our obligation is to see whether there is a PSO to provide additional services when a service is reduced. In this case, we do not believe there is a PSO to provide a service from Greystones after 8 p.m. directly to the airport. There is enough of a network of services. Naturally, the journey time would be longer.

I welcome all our witnesses. I have had ongoing engagement with Ms Graham and Mr. Creegan on many issues that relate to my constituency, Wicklow.

I will follow up on the issue of Go-Ahead Ireland, which will be no surprise to Mr. Creegan and Ms Graham because we have had plenty of conversations on its performance across the State and particularly in Wicklow. The licence was issued to Go-Ahead Ireland in 2018. Is that correct?

We have the figures for the first two quarters for 2023, as we have not finalised the full deductions. For the first half of 2023, it was €388,000 for Go-Ahead Ireland in the outer Dublin metropolitan area and €510,000 for the Dublin commuter outer metropolitan area. The equivalent figures were €4.5 million for Dublin Bus and €1.5 million for Bus Éireann.

It also operates services in the outer Dublin metropolitan area, which has much less bus priority available to it than its equivalent operator, Dublin Bus, where at least 30% of its kilometres are operated with bus priority. Naturally enough, it is more difficult for it to meet its punctuality target, which is a higher punctuality target than Dublin Bus operates to.

I can speak from a Wicklow perspective. Three routes were handed over to Go-Ahead Ireland - the 185, the 184 and the 45A. Throughout the years since Go-Ahead Ireland has taken them over, there have been consistent failures to provide a service that is fit for purpose. I have given many stories of how it has impacted on different people. For example, they are left waiting for buses that never show up and buses simply disappear from the live timetabling. There are so many stories. The concern I have-----

I also acknowledged the fact that we were going through the Covid pandemic for the majority of the operation of that contract, as were other operators. We should not isolate an operator in terms of its operations and not compare it with what other operators were suffering at the same time, which was a very significant reduction in driver numbers and a difficult operating environment through the pandemic.

BusConnects has the potential to provide a brilliant service. In my constituency, critical new local public transport routes, such as the L1, L2 and L3, are being rolled out. I am concerned that those new routes have been handed over to Go-Ahead Ireland to operate. Was there a tendering process for those new routes for Go-Ahead Ireland? Was Dublin Bus given the opportunity to provide the service on those routes?

We are doing a network delivery of services and the networks are changing for both Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland. We are reflecting the size of the contracts that both operators have in this new network, so there is a bit of give and take. It may lose in other parts that it is operating in and it is gaining in these routes. Similarly with Dublin Bus, there have been swaps of who delivers certain parts of the network. The overall intent is to keep the-----

I wish to move on to another area, which is the complete underinvestment in our rail infrastructure. The Rosslare to Dublin rail line is absolutely not fit for purpose. I have raised this on a number of occasions. On a daily basis - this has been the case both pre-Covid and post Covid - six rail journeys a day stop at the train station in Wicklow town. Every morning, the 7.30 a.m. train is full to capacity, with standing room only. I have raised this time and again. We have been told that additional carriages have been ordered and that this rail line may get additional carriages. There are huge concerns about the lack of investment. From what I have heard from the NTA, there are no assurances that investment will be forthcoming to deal with the major challenges on that route. What are the plans to increase capacity and increase the frequency of the rail service on that line?

I know the Deputy is aware of some of this. A couple of projects are advancing to address this, and they will ultimately provide a much better service on that line, certainly as far as Wicklow. There will potentially be a different arrangement south of that. As the Deputy is aware, as part of the DART+ programme, there is a plan to try to get three DARTs an hour to Greystones. At the moment, it is limited to two an hour. Even more significantly, the intention is to extend one of those DARTs per hour to run to Wicklow town on a battery basis. That project is advancing with Irish Rail. It is a couple of years from completion. The fleet has been ordered and that has the potential of coming in a few years.

Sorry, I am conscious of the time. I appreciate there is a broader, bigger piece of work being looked at. However, people need the investment here and now. Surely we do not need consultants to look into putting an additional couple of carriages at the end of a train that is going through the train stations on a daily basis. We do not need a broader, longer piece of work to do something as basic as putting a couple of additional carriages onto a train. People are voting with their feet. They are no longer taking that train and they are sitting in their cars on the N11 on tailbacks, which are getting longer on a daily basis, because of the failure of the NTA to put in basic investment into our rail infrastructure. This could be done straightaway.

I welcome the witnesses. I have a few technical questions that are very different. It will be no surprise to our witnesses that I will be concentrating on rural issues for a change. I appreciate that there has been a dramatic increase in connectivity in rural Ireland over the past few years.

I acknowledge that. There are criticisms of other things but I really want to acknowledge that. I think it is excellent. We have a bus route, which I fought for for years, from Nenagh to Limerick via all the villages. It is the 323 and it is fantastic. It will grow and grow. We do need bus stops but we will get there.

However, I wanted to ask questions about the integration of all of this. I am a huge fan of integrated transport. I had to drive up here this morning. I would love to have got the train from Nenagh. I cannot get a train from Nenagh that will meet the requirements of the time I have to be here. In the all-Ireland rail review, the Limerick-Shannon strategic report and all that, what plans are there for the Ballybrophy line, for example? It has been threatened with closure on numerous occasions. I had to intervene myself once upon a time. What plans are there to upgrade the likes of that line? Now that so many people are working from home and commuting, surely there is greater capacity to invest in lines like that and the Waterford to Limerick line, improve timetables and integrate them with bus services? Have we anything concrete on that?

-----looking at the timetables. We want to set out a national timetable of where we want to be in the next five to ten years in terms of service delivery and, off that, build the bus services that will integrate with those. We need to set an ambition for what we can deliver on the existing infrastructure and then with the proposed new infrastructure in terms of timetable.

I am sorry that I will be in and out of the room. I am caught for time. The timetables are a disaster, to be honest about this. I would love to be getting on a train every morning to come up here and I cannot. There are hundreds like me. We need to look at that and I urge the NTA to look at that.

The next issue is a bit of a bugbear of mine. It is called transport hubs. I was advocating for these over a decade ago. We want to put a transport hub in Nenagh. There is a massive train station and we want to put all the buses there. Unfortunately, the buses are still stopping in the middle of the town and a one-way system was brought in. It is galactically insane that is happening a few hundred yards away from a train station. I know investment has been put into hubs in other places, which I really admire. Will investment be put into transport hubs? The image I have for my home town is a railway station with an RTPI sign at the front with all the buses, trains, taxi services, active travel, etc., coming out of it. Is that going to happen?

I know we had a big discussion on Nenagh. We are committed to doing a transport hub at the train station, as the Deputy is aware. The bit we did not commit to was to pull the bus service from stopping in what we saw as the core centre. We are committed to building that hub in Nenagh. I believe we made an allocation to Tipperary this year towards it. I do not know its current status but if that proceeds-----

We are going to disagree on the buses. We are not going to go down that route again. The town centre, in relation to the number of people, is moving because there has been a lot of development there. I understand there will be surveying done of buses. I hope a certain percentage will go down to the train station. Honestly, there is not a human being in Nenagh who understands why buses coming off the motorway are stopping in one of the busiest towns in Ireland when there is a train station. It puts people off. It is a disaster. I am saying that honestly as a supporter of doing all of this. I am its biggest supporter and have a track record of supporting all this. It is galactically insane. It holds up the whole town. The NTA might come back to me on that.

My other matter is a real issue. It is one of my pet subjects for years, namely, taxis and hackneys. The rural hackney licence, which was from a survey I did as Minister in 2012, was reincarnated last year under the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan. A pilot was done. What were the results of that? The rural hackney licence was in ten locations and extended to more. How successful has it been?

Let me finish. There is a colossal problem. It is often seen to be the last thing on the agenda of the likes of the NTA. I am not saying it is but I am saying that is the perception. Trust me. I have been down this road. Will the NTA please put this up? The witnesses will hear many people talking about lots of issues around Dublin and urban areas, but people who live in rural parts of the country deserve access to services. I have complimented the NTA on the 323 bus route. It is a game changer. However, for many people to be able to get to social events and to get around the place, we need to find a licensing structure that covers people and that is available for medical appointments, social appointments, for mass, or for anything. We just need something. My feeling is local communities should be given a licence which is run off a hub of one, two or three businesses or community groups and which has a small fee with a grant. For the amount of money it would cost the Exchequer, one of these being available in every village in Ireland would be a game changer. It would be the thing the NTA would be most thanked for. Please try to tweak this so as to do that.

I have said this. A local publican, shop or community group can apply for a licence. The licence can have a number of people who can operate the licence. That community then applies for that licence and gets it. It is covered to offer a service to operate in a zonal area only. I accept that. It can drop off but it cannot collect and it can only operate in the 10 km or whatever limit. Allow them to apply for that.

That is a kind of hybrid between a local area hackney licence and the community licence, which is also a facility in the Act that would allow for a business if it is not charging for it. There is a derogation that can be given for a community licence. Again, we are struggling even to get subsidised community licences in place as well. We have made every effort we can, and we are not giving up on it.

We will find ways of delivering a service through rural Ireland, but a change in the legislation may be needed in order to be able to do that.

I think it will be needed. I know the Chair is passionate about this issue. My final point is that I think it does need a slight tweak in the legislation very quickly. On top of that, however, we should forget about pilots and it should be put out there and the communities that can come together will come together to do it.

I think this is the NTA's first appearance here since our report last year which identified €150 million of lost spending as a result of the metro project. I want to come back to that, but just in case the witnesses need to reach for some figures on that, I am giving them some advance warning on it.

I will come to a more parochial matter. I was at my local Tidy Towns clean-up day on Saturday and the taxi rank in Finglas village, where drivers often stop me with several different questions. There were two taxis parked beside each other. One was a 152-D Toyota Prius hybrid, and beside it was an 08-D Toyota Corolla. The Toyota Prius, because of the ten-year rule, will have to come off the road next year; the Toyota Corolla will not. I have raised this in the Dáil. It seems illogical as regards vehicles registered prior to 2012. There is an anomaly in that regard. It also undermines the whole principle of where we are going with reduce, reuse and recycle. With the use of e-vehicles now, we will not be able to replace cars every ten years. We will be replacing the batteries in them. It is time to end the ten-year rule the NTA operates.

We put in place the ten-year rule, which does not actually apply at the moment because we increased the age limit during the Covid pandemic to try to protect as many of the services and keep as many vehicles in the industry as possible. That has helped to recover the industry as quickly as possible. However, we believe it is appropriate that there is an age limit on the vehicles operating a public transport service. Through consultation, ten years was the chosen age, and we do think it is appropriate that that maximum age is put in place. However, given climate issues, and looking particularly at electric vehicles, that can be considered again. For the moment, however, as regards performance and emissions, certainly for petrol and diesel cars, we do need to see the age of ten years returned to and retained over the next few years.

In the meantime, however, on Saturday morning, I will be back at that taxi rank and I still have no answer as to why we are taking a 15-D hybrid off the road and allowing an 08-D to stay on the road. That hybrid is a car the taxi driver bought during the Covid period, before the first extension of the ten-year rule. He feels he is being led up the garden path. First, he fears that it might be extended again next year. Second, he is parked beside a guy who has a car seven years older than his that is not being taken off the road, and his is. The hybrid car is also more efficient.

As the Deputy knows, these rules cannot always be applied in the fairest way. We do our best to be fair to the industry and to give it an indication of what is happening. When the extension was put in place in terms of the age, we very clearly said that it was only for a temporary period and indicated that it was going to be reduced then year on year to recover back to the ten years and will happen, I think, up to 2025-26. It also depends on when an individual joined the industry. As the Deputy knows, there are different rules. From an external perspective, it does not seem to be the fairest, but they are the regulations-----

Given how rapidly we are moving, and the public are moving more quickly than anyone expected, I hope the NTA will be proactive on that point and consider the abolition of the ten-year rule. I think it will be necessary. I imagine if you were to ask the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, about reduce, reuse and recycle and the idea of forcing people to dispose of a car that in this case is more efficient than ones already on the road, he would say it does not make policy sense.

Let me move on to the issue of metro. The report indicated that there was €150 million of income lost in the metro project. From my recollection of that, it was largely to do with the decision initially to end the project, then to restart it and for it to be on a different route. Do the witnesses accept the figure of €150 million and the recommendations of the report?

Many people who come before us spend a lot less than €150 million. You would have to buy an awful lot of flip-flops to spend €150 million. I think of the saga that happened in here last year. For a Government agency to lose or set aside - I am not even sure what the correct word is - €150 million, albeit for probably very good transport reasons in order that we will have a better system going forward for €10 billion, can the witnesses talk to us about the business case of how that decision was made? Was it accepted that amount of money would be lost when the route change happened?

I will come in on that one from a departmental perspective because it is an important point about oversight of expenditure, and given the committee we are in front of. The money that was spent on metro north was expended in line with applicable Government policy and financial procedures at the time and subject to scrutiny through the Comptroller and Auditor General, etc., on a project that ultimately was cancelled. It was expended and it was a significant amount of money, but that project was cancelled, and that was a decision of the Government. It is a matter for the Government to decide whether projects proceed or do not proceed, and the decision at that time was taken not to proceed with that project, so it is a different project now.

Yes, but a significant contributing factor to the money being lost was the decision not to take that project back up, which, by the way, had full planning permission and so on. We could have reinitiated that project. My question is how much of the €150 million would not have been lost had we gone with the previous route and the previous planning application.

A number of steps were taken post the Government's decision to cancel that project, the first of which was to re-examine the underlying context of the project, metro north, at that time. As the Deputy knows, that study was the Fingal north Dublin study, ultimately published in 2015, which recommended a different approach, and it is that different approach which was accepted by the Government-----

I do not accept that the Government decision alone is justification. Surely when the Government was making the decision there was a cost-benefit analysis, there were different routes put and there was a decision to lose €150 million because it was believed that it would save money elsewhere or it was better value for money elsewhere. That is my question. What was that process?

I will read out the line from the Comptroller and Auditor General's opening statement: "In 2022, performance-related deductions applied to public transport operators amounted to just over €17.3 million, up from just under €3.8 million in 2021." That is not just an amount; it is reliability. Reliability is the number one important issue for people. You stand at a bus stop and the bus does not show up. You can only give so many excuses in work and your employment becomes untenable. It is the same with school and all the rest. Reliability has to be the number one. Where are we with that now?

I have said this before. The NTA does surveys and will do a satisfaction survey. People have come into my office, including even this week, about a couple of services put on almost two and a half years ago and are still experiencing dissatisfaction even this week. I hope those people will come forward as well as people in other places. It is all very well saying there are 72,000 submissions but if you ignore some of the issues people raise, they do not tell you anything. All it tells you is that there are 72,000 submissions. There are people I know who are back in their cars because public transport services were reconfigured and it does not work for them. If we do not provide a service that meets people's needs, they will not choose it - certainly if it is not reliable. For example - I know them well - there has been an improvement on the 120 and 139 in terms of reliability. The problem is that some are single-decker, there is a capacity shortfall and people cannot get on. The NTA is meeting its targets but not meeting the need. There is a single-decker bus on one route and a double-decker bus on another, which may be a Dublin Bus route, with very little use. Why is there a single-decker on one route that needs a double-decker and why is there a double-decker on another route when a single-decker would do? It does not make sense. There is an issue with no-shows in the Aircoach service. Yesterday evening, for example, on the Dublin to Kilcock route, which is 35 km, the 4.30 p.m. and 5 p.m. buses were cancelled; they just disappeared. There have been improvements in the service but that means people will not get it. That is causing congestion. While I acknowledge improvements, the NTA does not listen when people say the service does not meet their needs, despite the NTA saying there are 72,000 submissions.

The 72,000 submissions relate to the BusConnects network consultation going back a number of years. That is not the only thing we do. We always receive feedback as we deliver the network. We are delivering it over many phases. We acknowledge tweaks are needed to some of the services when they operate. There are journeys of which we were not even aware that people were making, which feeds back into a relook at some of our services. If we stand back and look at the phases that have been delivered up to now in BusConnects, as indicated in our statement and in the briefing material, we have seen a greater increase in passenger numbers on every single one of those phases compared with those routes that-----

There is a double movement of people with BusConnects, so the NTA counts those. That is fine. Of course, if you put more buses on in different places, more people will use them. I understand that. That does not mean that the service necessarily meets people's needs. There are different needs. If you look at cost per kilometre, which is in the briefing document, it is €6.28 per kilometre as opposed to €5.80. It costs more. The NTA said that is because there are increased weekend services, which there are, and there are increased night-time services. There are also a lot of empty buses and out-of-service buses. Are they counted in the kilometres? Are they counted as in-service buses?

I will go to something else. I may follow up if we get a second opportunity. The NTA planned routes. To what extent was this a desktop exercise? I will give two examples. The NTA planned on putting the W8 on, which was an orbital route from Maynooth to Tallaght. It was a great idea which I really supported. Just before it was to be introduced, the NTA discovered there was a bridge over which a bus could not go. There is now the W61 and the W62, one which brings you so far and the other which brings you to the other side because you cannot get over the bridge.

A second example is where the NTA wanted to terminate several services at Confey railway station. You would be doing well to turn one bus there; you could certainly not queue or turn four or five buses there. There was no capacity or space to do that. I do not know if that is happening in other areas. I can give the witnesses examples of things I am aware of at a granular level. It indicates that this is very much a desktop design that does not take account of typography or the requirement for movement to, for example, hospitals, etc. All it looks at is routes, spine and services.

The design of the service is, initially, a desktop exercise. There is no doubt about that. However, that works with input from local authorities, operators and experts in transport when designing the first phase in terms of a network that went out for consultation. That was refined as we got feedback from the 72,000 submissions received. As we got feedback from each of the consultation sessions that we carried out throughout the city, we refined it even more and made the network even more optimal for users. It then gets down to operational checks.

The Deputy is right about the W6 service. There was an issue with buses not being able to safely pass one another on that bridge and consideration was given to splitting the service temporarily until works could be put in place. They will then be joined up. Mr. Ryan will give the Deputy an update on that shortly.

Our desire is not just to draw lines on routes and hope that people will come. We want people to be able to use the service. We want it to be a useful service for customers. We take into account trips to schools, education and shopping locations. We are looking at trying to meet people's local needs, as well as their longer distance needs, through this network. That is what the network is designed to do. There will always be tweaks that will have to be made as we get into actual operations, in particular for a new orbital service. That is what we have been delivering over the past couple of years. We have allowed people to make connections that they were never able to make before, in particular with orbital services.

We cannot serve every hospital from every location within the city. There may be requirements to interchange in order to get to hospitals. We have increased the number of services going to Blanchardstown Hospital in particular. It is a major hub. We look at hospitals and try to ensure we serve hospitals such as St. James's, Blanchardstown and Beaumont and that they have as many services as possible.

I have a quick question that may or may not be pertinent. Perhaps somebody could come back to me on it. A constituent made a complaint to me when it was announced on Monday, 29 April that the No. 370 Bus Éireann service from Rosslare Europort to Waterford is to be updated. The update leaves Bridgetown without a service. Is that relevant at all to anyone here?

This is pertinent to what another committee member said. It is about having a service that works for the people. My constituent believes that the NTA is behind this change and is trying to say there is a great Local Link service, which I do not disagree with. Locals will have to catch the No. 370 bus from Wellington Bridge. The drive from Wellington Bridge to Bridgetown lasts approximately ten minutes. This is not good enough. I take that bus to work every day. Losing this service is a hammer blow to me and to hundreds of others. Bridgetown is quite a populated area.

The updated timetable will also see the No. 370 stopping in Duncannon, Ramsgrange and Campile, which is currently served by another No. 370 service that is being cut. There is hardly ever enough seats on the service, which will put the No. 370 service under even more pressure. It is beyond me as to how these decisions are made. Perhaps the witnesses would enlighten me.

That is fine. I thank Mr. Ryan.

I will go back to various decisions that have been made. The crossover between Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and the NTA can be confusing. Mr. Ryan or Mr. Creegan and I had a conversation yesterday about freight trains, passenger rail and one thing and another. Apart from the fact that it often appears that these are desktop exercises, when some form of proposal is put in place, is it ever reviewed by NewERA or the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA? Who reviews a project to say it involves a viable proposal?

It would depend on the proposal. We put together proposals for infrastructure related to bus provision only. The sponsoring agency for metro and light rail is TII. The sponsoring agency for rail infrastructure is Iarnród Éireann. We are the approving authority for many of the rail projects, as well as for light rail. In terms of doing detailed designs related to projects, the ones for which we are directly responsible are BusConnects projects and the sustainable transport corridors. Mr. Creegan might give the Deputy an outline of how we approach those.

I will come in on that. Ms Graham outlined the structures and infrastructure guidelines. For projects that cost more than €200 million, the major projects that are detailed in the infrastructure guidelines, the Department and its Accounting Officer obviously retain ultimate responsibility. For those larger projects, including BusConnects, DART projects, Cork commuter rail, etc., there is a governance and oversight structure within the Department. We meet monthly with representatives of the NTA. As relevant, representatives of sponsoring agencies also come in. NewERA sits alongside us on that governance and oversight group, so we benefit from its advice in that context. We analyse at a departmental level those business cases for major projects. They are ultimately brought to Government in line with the infrastructure guidelines at stages AG1 and AG3. The AG2 stage is a detailed project brief and procurement strategy and ministerial approval. There is NewERA input at the departmental level of oversight.

It also provides advice for our analysis of documentation at the approval gate. The terminology has changed recently. At those approval gates, documented analysis would be done by various parties, including from within the Department. We also hear the NewERA perspective, largely around the financial analysis in the business cases. As a Department, with the benefit of the economic and the policy analysis, we present matters to Government.

That is grand. I thank Mr. Doocey. I will have a look at that again and might come back to the committee.

A proposal was presented to allow for a change to the train service with a stop in Wicklow on the Wexford to Dublin route. There would be a change in Wicklow, at which point the service would join the DART service. I did some analysis of my own. I was informed yesterday that the service would be faster and that the proposal would make the journey faster, but that is not the case. It is not faster. How long does it take to get from Wexford to Dublin? Which is the fastest train?

Prior to my contribution, all my colleagues have said that the only way to get people out of cars and onto public transport is if it is faster. Usually, it just needs to be faster and not even cheaper. The quickest train from Wexford takes two hours and seven minutes. I live 30 miles from Wexford and can make it from my house to Dublin, via Wexford, in two hours. Most of the work the witnesses do is desktop work and it is a fierce waste of public money. Mr. Creegan said to me yesterday that people would be delighted. I have traversed my constituency for months, to the north, south, east and west of Wexford - it is 90 km from north to south - and I have not met anybody who thinks this is a good proposal. I said to Mr. Creegan that I have met several people who want a high-speed rail network. We had a conversation about Irish Rail and the existing rail network that runs along our coastline. Not all of the Wexford coastline is serviced by a rail line but for the predominant bit of it we need, it will cost €200 million to keep coastal erosion at bay. That is not to future-proof services, it is just to keep erosion at bay. How is it that we would be considering anything on that rail line? Why are we not considering building new electrified rail lines alongside the motorway that will soon run non-stop from Rosslare to Belfast?

We are spending dead money to run diesel engine trains. There is no vision. The NTA said it would take 20 years. We have to start somewhere. I have been proposing this for four years. We would be down to 16 years if my proposal had been taken up. Instead, we are spending money. Eventually, we will do what I am saying anyway. Every country in Europe except Ireland seems to be doing it. There is a lot to be said for asking questions about the position with regard to how public transport proposals are put forward. They are certainly not put forward on the basis of speed. It is not a service if it is not based on speed.

Let me get this in here. On the line to the north of Dublin, there are 139 trains from Monday to Friday. They come from Malahide, Howth, Drogheda and Belfast. There are 97 trains a day on Saturday. Wexford is served by four trains each Saturday. I asked Mr. Creegan what the population differential is, but he did not have a clue. There are 106 trains. There is a 40-train deficit between the two lines. The very same issue arises with regard to the line whether someone is coming from the north or south, but we can put 40 extra trains coming from the north. The only answer was that it was from one main city to another. The people in southern Ireland do not seem to matter because there is no major city.

Again, I want to outline that the NTA's role is in delivering transport services. We have a contract to deliver the most services we can with the budget we have and with the infrastructure in place currently. We have a role in terms of the strategic planning for the greater Dublin area. We have outlined what should be delivered up to 2042.

I am just outlining what we are doing in terms of the strategic development of rail within the greater Dublin area. Outside of the greater Dublin area, it falls to the Department to look, through the strategic rail review, at the ambitions for rail on a national basis. Our proposal relates to the greater Dublin area. It has not even gone for consultation yet. It still has to go through consultation. We would be happy to receive submissions on that proposal once it is announced for consultation.

I will come to the issue of the money now. I will revert to the spend to date on the metro north and MetroLink projects. Mr. Doocey from the Department stated that metro north is now a separate project. When I asked for clarification on this just after I started this meeting, Mr. Creegan clarified that €158 million was spent on the metro up to December 2023. Does that include the €150 million spent on the metro north project that has now been shelved?

I accept that. That is €308 million up to December and we are nearly halfway through another year. I know Mr. Creegan has given me the figures as accurately as he can. I thank him for that. If I heard Mr. Creegan correctly, he said that the projected cost of MetroLink before the preparation work, the planning and everything else that has to be done - I understand there is a lot of costly preparation work to be done before we start to stick shovels in the ground - would be in the region of €300 million.

I know this is a policy decision. I am not necessarily hammering the NTA on this issue. It is new to me that €450 million will be spent on the metro project without ever buying a carriage or a metre of rail line, and without sending a digger or somebody with a hard hat out to the site to work on the project.

It is the job of the Department, and the NTA as the day-to-day approving authority, to ensure we get value for money for that expenditure as it is expended before we hit actual construction. We are assured at a departmental level that we are getting that value for money. The Government has approved at decision gate 1, which is now approval gate 1, the preliminary business case to allow us to continue to the next approval gate. As I explained earlier and as the Chair acknowledged, the money spent on metro north was a separate project. It was brought through under similar, appropriate guidelines-----

It seems that an incredible sum of money has been spent without anything happening, and without anybody being able to see physical work starting. I take on board the point that politicians have a job to do to try to shorten these processes. We do not want to take shortcuts because it is not about carrying out cowboy projects. We need to speed up the planning and preparation stage. We need to shorten the journey to get to awarding a tender and getting contractors on site.

The expenditure on MetroLink was €158 million to the end of December and there is more to go. That is an enormous sum of money but that is what it costs to bring a project of this scale through the design process and get it to construction. This is the time when we need to spend money to make sure we have all the details right and to minimise problems downstream. We are in line with what happens internationally. We are not out of kilter. That is what it takes to bring forward a massive project.

I understand this can be expensive, but it seems to be very, very expensive. The fact is that so much money has already gone down the tube. If an ordinary citizen wasted €150, they would beat themselves up for a week. In this case, €150 million was wasted with not a thing to show for it, not even a piece of paper. I accept-----

I understand that. It was a policy decision. That is banked. I accept Mr. Doocey's word on that. I will not go there as we are not going to discuss policy.

That is for a different forum. I will turn to something more minor, which is bus stops. Ms Graham, you will not be surprised I am revisiting this. You and I have had many conversations and I thank you for your help over the years. The NTA put in a fantastic one in Monasterevin, when it was part of the constituency. It is widely used. They are gone in at Kilminchy at Portlaoise. The one on the down carriageway, which is going into town, is fantastic. I meant to take a photograph and show it. The one on the outbound - northbound - carriageway is skimpy. There is no end on it. The wind and rain are blowing into it. It took an inordinate amount of time to put it up. It went on for months. The reason I plagued the NTA about those is you see people standing in the rain in the morning waiting to go to work, and going to work soaking wet. We want to encourage people to use public transport. There is a big population now in the town and it is great to see it there. Will you look at extending that bus stop, to try to copy what is on the other side?

Has anyone any idea what that cost? There were two huge diggers on site. I know there were some accommodation works and the council may have taken advantage of that. I do not know if the witnesses are familiar with the Catholic church in Portlaoise, but it has a massive steeple. It is no exaggeration to say that when that was built in the 1960s there would not have been much more concrete used to hold up the steeple of the chapel than went in under the bus stop. They were pouring concrete for days. I never saw anything like it. How much did that bus stop cost? I know the NTA is trying to do high-spec and wheelchair access. I understand all of that, but it seems a huge amount of time and work. It seems like overkill. I then saw this small bus shelter going on top and I wondered if that was what this was all about. How much do those bus stops and shelters cost on average? I welcome them and we will talk about more of them.

I will say one thing. This one did not cost €25,000. No way, not with the machinery on site and the length of time it went on. There was a separate piece of work because the council carried out some ducting work in that area. They understandably took advantage of the works. A massive structure went there before the physical thing was put in. The one on the down side of the carriageway - I will send photos of it to you if you do not have them - that is what you need.

There was one to go into Ballybrittas.

That is good; it is badly needed. The next ones needed are in Mountrath, Castletown and Borris-in-Ossory. We need to encourage the citizenry of those locations and the environs of those three villages and towns onto the bus. It is the R445. The witnesses will have a name on the route. I do not have it. There is money allocated for it. We have been liaising with the council on it. When will we see bus shelters in Borris-in-Ossory, Castletown and Mountrath?

There is a good wide street there. There are three new housing estates and another small one due to open in the next six to 12 months.

Regarding the N78, the Athy to Castlecomer route, in Ballylynan, Pedigree Corner and Newtown, there are no bus shelters.

Will you come back to me on the cost of those two Kilminchy ones, please? Thank you. I also have a question about the bus routes out of Portlaoise. I do not want to complain too much because we are well served and I use it an odd time myself. The bus to the airport - the green bus - is on the hour and it is great. It is a 24-hour service. There is one problem with it. Does the NTA get a record of how many times it breaks down? That is the problem with the green bus. It is on the hour. People will say it goes into every town and village on the way up to Dublin. You put up with that because it is on the hour and it gets you there. If you arrive at the airport at 2 a.m. or 2.10 a.m., you just have to wait for the next one to come. You never have to wait more than a quarter of an hour for one, and down you come. However, I regularly pass them broken down on the motorway.

They are a licensed commercial service. We do not have any regulatory input into their operations. It would be different if it were a contracted service. If there was a loss of service, we obviously would not pay for that service. When it is commercially operated, our role is really just in assessing whether there is demand for that service and licensing it. The conditions we can impose are really related to accessibility and emissions standards, but that is the limit of it. There is no performance regime associated with it or any penalties that we can apply. It is not being allowed for in the legislation.

Will you ask them for a report on how often they broke down? What happens is the next bus picks them up. It is the only fault in that service, and where people are going to the airport, I get occasional complaints about it.

I travel up and down the motorway and can see what is happening. The green bus is regularly broken down.

It is a good service every other way. I acknowledge that.

On the issue of connecting Local Link services to other services, the NTA cannot help it if, for example, a railway station is on one side of the town centre and bus drop-off points are on the other. The distance is not far, but are the connections with Local Link services under constant review? Helpfully, Local Link services smaller towns like Mountrath and goes by the station. Is the system regularly reviewed so that Local Link services tie in with the rail network at the likes of Portlaoise, which is a busy station?

Yes, as that is the key to getting an integrated network. We work with Irish Rail to facilitate connections by having a bus stop either close to the station or at the station, that is, buses pulling into the station’s grounds. An important part of the delivery of an integrated service is that Local Link services are integrated, where possible, at spaces around rail stations. The next step is to ensure there is not a large waiting time between one service and the other and that they are better integrated from that point of view.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I am now going to name some towns in my constituency.

I will revert to the bus stops issue. My God, it breaks my heart. Stradbally now has eight services in and out of Dungarvan daily, but the only way someone would know that a bus passed through Stradbally would be if he or she happened to be standing on the side of the road when it went by. There is no bus stop or painted square on the ground. There is no sign of a timetable. To use the bus service, someone would have to know when the bus was going to turn up and be in the right place. Someone might know it was leaving from the village square – the square is not enormous, as Stradbally is a small village – but there is no indication of where to stand to catch it.

The process for getting a bus service – the Cathaoirleach outlined some of this – seems tortuous, labyrinthine or whatever word we want to attach to it. The local authority points to the NTA and the NTA often points back to the local authority, and it takes forever. Much of the time, the service is designed as if it were dropped from space. Stradbally does not need a large bus shelter or a real-time board. We could use a pole with a timetable on it, though. For anyone who engages with a Local Link service, this is a recurring feature. If possible, will the witnesses briefly describe the process from identifying that there is a clear need for a bus stop to the point where we actually have a bloody bus stop?

I will have a go. There have been many changes to Local Link routes. There were 60 last year and we are hoping to get in roughly the same number this year, although it may be slightly less. As Ms Graham mentioned, there is a legacy of 16,000 bus stops nationwide, so there is a great deal of catching up to be done.

For contracted services like those provided by Local Link, Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead, we identify stopping locations and proposed timetables. We go to the local authority and-----

In towns, it can be done quickly in a streamlined process. We have gone through well over 1,000 stops in Dublin, for example. In more rural areas, putting in bus stops is usually more difficult because there is not necessarily a hard standing and the local authority will want one, so it has to approve the hard standing’s design after it has approved the location in the first instance. That can all take significantly longer.

-----months and months.

There are a couple of other points I would like to make, although I will not pose questions on them because I want to ask a final question later. The points have to do with real-time updates for Local Link services and the TFI Live app. I do not use the app even though I use public transport a great deal. I use a private website instead, particularly for the No. 360 route, which has units within the buses. The website shows me where the bus is on the road. I can pull a map up and see that the bus is passing Clarinwood, so I had better get my skates on and get up the road. In the vast majority of cases, we do not have the same information in respect of Local Link services. It is much more important with Local Link, given the lower frequency of its services. If I am in Tramore and miss the bus that is going into town, I wait 20 minutes. If I miss the Local Link bus, I must wait two hours. If I am standing at the bus stop, which is not a visible bus stop and does not have a visible timetable, I have no way of knowing whether the bus is behind me or in front of me and whether I have missed it. I want to see live updates for Local Link services. None of the young people I speak to use the TFI Live app. It was my nephew who told me he did not find it user-friendly and referred me to the private website, where I could see the bus on a map in real time. Surely that is not the most difficult thing in the world to achieve.

I wish to put a question to the Department, although the NTA will probably have a view on it as well. We have significant funding for active travel projects, but not every project is getting funding through that stream. There is a great deal of pushback from communities, which get annoyed because design stage of, for example, a footpath is done, but when the latest round of active travel funding is announced, their project is not funded. The Department issued a memorandum on grants for regional and local roads. It includes funding for the improvement of road junctions and traffic management, the provision of pathways and cycleways, etc. Is the Department being super clear in directing local authorities that, if there is no active travel funding, they have this other funding stream? My experience of local authorities is that they say they are sorry that communities did not get funding under active travel and that is the only show in town, but it is not the only show in town. The local authorities should be aware of that, as should local communities.

There is a flip side of this question for the NTA. When dealing with people’s disappointment that they cannot fund a footpath in Dunhill under the active travel scheme, which is the example sitting in my mind, does it tell people there is a plan B?

I am sure there is a narrative out there, but there are funding streams from other Departments. It can be confusing. To bring the discussion back to our Department, the Deputy is right in that we have two funding streams. They are active travel, which significant investment is going through and the NTA manages on our behalf, and the regional and local roads programme. There has been confusion in recent years, as we have ramped up the active travel programme, about the relationship between it and the regional and local roads programme.

We still believe the memorandum is a little unwieldy. An improvement was made to this year’s version to try to clarify matters for local authorities. We are looking to improve it again for next year’s issuance. Internally within the Department, we are improving our communication across the regional and local roads programme and the active travel team so that projects do not fall between the stools.

On the regional and local roads programme, the active travel-type infrastructure that is being used to support more relates to safety on regional and local roads. When there is a safety issue such as junction tightening, for example, there is an opportunity to fund it through that. If it is purely an active travel enhancement which falls more properly within the active travel programme, our preference is to direct it towards the active travel programme. We are looking to improve communications both internally and then externally to local authorities as well.

I will be brief. In our dealings with local authority officials around the allocations, there is a process we go through and it is fair to say that we occasionally, but not regularly, flag up things like projects that are more appropriate to TII's funding stream for greenways or projects that are far bigger than just a cycle track and are more appropriate for the regional roads grant scheme. We direct in such cases but, to be honest, that is on an occasional basis rather than as a consistent policy.

My question is the one the witnesses are expecting me to ask them. It relates to the bolt-on process, or likely bolt-on process, with regard to Kilcock and DART+ West. Is the NTA working on a bolt-on process? As the witnesses are aware, there will be big railway sheds in Kilcock. The train is coming to Kilcock but people cannot get on or off and the railway station is only a few hundred metres away. Is there a proposal to do anything with that? Essentially, there is a sizeable population. There are people further out who could get as far as there. It would reduce congestion further in. The N4 is mentioned daily in the context of congestion. We are going to have to deal with it in different segments. Is there a proposal for that at all? Is any work being done on it?

That is fair enough. The short answer is not this year because we have not yet received planning consent for the DART+ West project. Assuming that comes through this year, we envisage starting a project with Irish Rail next year to extend to Kilcock and ensure that we get the extra distance run out. The Deputy is right; it is a short extension.

I thank Mr. Creegan.

As regards bus shelters, I suppose the NTA has been saying the exact same thing we all have been saying - is it ever going to stop? We have had rain non-stop for months. How do you get bus shelters? Under BusConnects, people are going to be told they have to get off and wait, to use that as an example. People cannot be told they have to bring their umbrellas with them. The service must be provided. Can the NTA give us some sort of note on how to get bus shelters? They are absolutely essential if people are going to be moved between different routes and things are going to be connected up.

As for bus stops, what the NTA has described here is different from the experience when BusConnects was installed. I appreciate what the witnesses said about going to the local authority, which is the body that determines the type of bus stops and where they can be located and all the rest of it, but when BusConnects was installed, for example, lines and square boxes were painted on the road. There were no pull-in bays. A bus stop was stuck in and suddenly, hey presto, there are bus stops all over the place. Why is it different for BusConnects? Why is the system different?

We do not encourage pull-in bays in urban areas. First, it can be awkward for buses to pull in. Often, there is not enough space and people at the centre doors cannot disembark onto the footpath. Another issue is that pulling out into traffic in areas where there is likely to be traffic congestion could slow down buses. We do not encourage that. In-line bus stops are preferred.

There has been a focus on it because we are delivering a new network of services. The local authorities are probably closer to it because we are delivering the new network and they are probably more aware of what is required in terms of the approval process compared with other rural local authorities that may not have had to deal with a bus stop location-----

I completely appreciate that and I know about the resistance. However, I have noticed a big difference before and after BusConnects, for what it is worth.

With regard to active travel, there is still a de facto embargo on local authorities in terms of staffing. There is a disproportionate number of staff. The staff ratio is different in different parts of the country. For example, Kerry has double the staff that Meath has but there are 70,000 more people in Meath. I can just tell you that off the top of my head. It is not evenly distributed throughout the country. Many of the technical staff in local authorities lost their jobs because they were on contracts when the big embargo and economic crash happened and they have not recovered that. It is almost always outsourcing because some local authorities do not have the in-house numbers to deal with it, particularly in areas that have grown, such as Fingal, south Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow. That is the big arc where the population increase has happened in very large numbers. When I meet my local authority, it tells me it cannot do that because it cannot get the people to do it. It cannot get people to design it. Is the NTA getting money back? We want money to be spent. It is almost sinful that money is not spent when there are projects that should be delivered and, from a climate perspective, must be delivered. I refer to not being able to get people to design because a local authority does not have in-house people and cannot get consultancy. What money is being handed back in terms of grants? Is the NTA monitoring that? Are there particular pinch points with particular local authorities?

There is no money being handed back. We actually have more projects than we have funding for. We have to recognise that local authorities responded quickly to the increase in grant aiding that was available, which was a very significant uplift, and have been delivering across the country. However, there is no doubt that some local authorities have found it difficult to either recruit or retain staff. Mr. Creegan might give an update on that.

Approximately four years ago, through the Department of Transport, there was an agreement put in place that all local authorities could have a certain number of staff for an active travel unit. It is fair to say that they are all struggling to recruit that staff complement. Indeed, when they recruit their staff complement fully, the neighbouring local authority has a competition and some of the staff will go over there. It has been a challenge for all local authorities to get the staff in-house. Equally, there is such a booming construction market at certain levels that getting resources to design schemes externally is a problem. That said, local authorities and design teams that want to get projects done generally are able to work their way through them and get them done. As Ms Graham said, we have more projects than funding available this year and all of the councils are pursuing all of them pretty expeditiously.

I wish to go back to the proposal with regard to a stop on the Rosslare to Dublin line. My understanding is that Irish Rail is saying that the main constraint with the direct service is congestion on the commuter line from Bray to Connolly Station.

The trains coming from the northern direction into Dublin also have to deal with the same challenge on the DART line from Malahide and Howth junction.

If we look at the difference in the frequency of service, there are up to 40 intercity trains travelling into Connolly from Belfast and the equivalent into Connolly from Rosslare, Wexford, Arklow and Gorey is six. I know there is just a single track to Bray. Does that explain the differential? Is it enough to say that that is the reason for six trains versus 40?

To be honest, I do not know. The differential has been outlined and I have had it broken down. The service leaves six times a day and one of the journeys takes over four hours. It is crazy. It is not a service at all. As I said, it is currently not a service and the witnesses are telling me that the proposed change would not make it faster.

I will ask Mr. Creegan some questions that have been put to me by constituents with regard to the carriages on that track. The less comfortable ones, the 29000 class carriages, are still running on the Rosslare line. When can we expect to see that line operate with 22000 class cars?

If Ms Graham goes back to the report on the proposal for the changeover at Bray, the service has increased exponentially, although it is cat on the Wexford line. There has been an increase in passenger numbers. The NTA funded 41 carriages, or somebody has. I am not asking how much; I am asking how many will go on that line.

What I am saying is that there is a cost associated with the deployment of the fleet. We can only do what we can within our current budget with that fleet and approve the proposals that Irish Rail is putting forward. That fleet can be utilised even further, as has been suggested by my colleague in terms of shuttles and other ways of using the fleet, but that is currently not within our budget to do. However, we look forward to seeing what we need in terms of service delivery for the next five years on the infrastructure and with the fleet we currently have. That will form the basis of our funding requests each year to assist us in delivering those services.

I have to say that I do not see the forward planning as an improvement. For this committee, it is imperative that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, given the spending that has gone into a black hole. I will put it to the witnesses again. Never mind the fact it is €150 million running to €300 million for three combined projects that are now gone by the wayside. Were they vanity projects of the Government or were they proposals that were never going to work, and we just ended up spending this money? Is there incompetence somewhere that is not being unearthed? I do not know of any business, and I was in business in logistics for a long time, where you would outlay €150 million and then blame a matter of policy for it being removed. Either the policy was bonkers in the first place or the proposed project was not costed correctly and was bonkers, and nobody of any worth signed off on it. As a committee, we need to recommend that with anything of the nature and cost of these projects, NewERA and the NTMA would have to give official sign-off before any further actions are taken. There is incompetence somewhere and we do not have enough time to unearth it.

Thank you. The issue of bus stops and bus shelters has been covered and the NTA is going to supply information on that. The only thing I would say about the bus breakdown is that a requirement for a report to be given to the NTA in regard to service provision and the quality and efficiency of the service be put into the licence requirement. Can that happen and if not, why not?

Somebody could be operating locally. I know cars where a high mileage has been put on in the first three years but somebody living next door might have very low mileage. It is the same with taxis, some of which operate very locally.

Taxi drivers who are pushing on in age may not want long routes. That should be factored in.

Going back to the buses which are taken out after 12 years, is account taken of mileage?

I would like to move on to active travel. The public often ask what active travel is. It is walking, cycling and wheeling, which I think means scooters. In 2022, €310 million was allocated for active travel and some good work has been done. There are a couple of issues, however. I am saying this to be helpful. Yesterday, I gave the example of €200,000 allocated for the Cork Road in Durrow. It was in the roads programme. I was pushing it and I know another local authority public representative was also pushing for it. Hey presto, it disappeared. Normally when we see something in the roads programme and we are being lobbied by local residents, we will say to them it is in the programme and if it is not done, the money will be rolled over through the council's multi-annual roads programme. However, this €200,000 disappeared.

I asked an engineer on the council what had happened. He said the delay resulted from the need to bring in a consultant to design the footpath and public lights. A clerk of works or anybody who has ever stood on a construction site could design it, never mind highly qualified engineers and technicians which the council has. I was told by the NTA that the design for the footpath and to put in streetlights at the Seandoire housing estate in Durrow had to be done by consultants. Is that the case? Was that at the NTA's insistence?

I am anxious to get to the bottom of what happened there because it put the public representatives in a difficult situation - now you see it, now you don't. If we tell people the money is there and it will be delivered, we should be able to do it. I want to figure out who insisted on a consultant design being required for this and it being outsourced. It could have been done in-house very quickly. I acknowledge that many footpaths and cycleways have been put in and estates have been connected up. They should have been connected up when the development was done. Some of the estates were built too far out. They should never have been put where they are. They should have been put in closer and not leapfrogged out over green fields. They should be closer to the centre. We talk about ten-minutes cities; we need ten-minute villages and towns as well. Unfortunately, there are some bad examples around the country from the Celtic tiger era where they were built with five, six or seven green fields leapfrogged and put out in the middle of the countryside and then had to be connected up with sewers, footpaths and lights.

As was alluded to earlier, the other problem with active travel is that money is allocated from TII, the Department and local authorities. This can result in having two different sets of engineers in the council who may not know what the other is doing. One is operating under active travel funding and the other is under the area. The area engineer should know everything. I make the point to Mr. Doocey that the Department needs to get this joined up at local authority level. If work is being carried out in an area, the area engineer needs to be centrally involved in it. They cannot be pushed to one side. The area engineers need to know what is planned to go in to ensure there is no duplication of works and they need to know what funding is available.

Very importantly, there is another group of people who happen to be the legal local authority, namely, councillors. A new batch of them will be elected in five weeks' time. They need to be centrally involved. They are marginalised completely. New footpaths went in around where my office is in Portlaoise, down by Tower Hill. The input from councillors was zero. That is not acceptable. The Department of local government will join up somewhat, but the Department of Transport needs to start joining up with local councillors. These people generally live locally and see what is going on. They will see some of the issues and should be working together with the area engineer. That needs to be put back together again. That connection has been taken apart at local authority level.

Funding coming down needs to have the fingerprints of local councillors and the local area engineer across it. It has become completely disjointed because the Department sends money down through the NTA. TII, which is also under the Department of Transport, sends down money and the county manager decides where it goes. Hey presto, the work has started and they are on site before the local councillors even know it. The local councillors have no input and they get an earbashing from the local residents, commuters and everybody else because some obvious things have been overlooked. Tower Hill, for example, is not wheelchair accessible. A local councillor whom I am very familiar with brought people in a wheelchair to see if they could use it and they could not use it. Now some of that work has to be undone. Had the councillors being involved on the first day, that would not need to be done. I am giving that as a practical example.

Public money is being sent down and these are the people who are the legal local authority. They are publicly elected. There will be a new batch elected in five weeks' time. They need to be put back into this process. Money spent locally needs to have their fingerprints over it and their input, along with the input of the engineers, who do excellent work. I ask Mr. Doocey to give a commitment that that will be followed up in order that they will join up better. I ask him to respond to me, please.

No problem. I totally agree about joined-up thinking. We need joined-up thinking at the central level between the Department, the NTA and TII, and within the Department's regional local roads division. I hear what the Chair is saying about joined-up thinking at local level as well. I would make a point about the projects on the ground. They are put in place subject to whatever the most appropriate statutory framework is. They are put in place under statutory frameworks, whether that is a Part 8 planning permission or another statutory framework that is available, such as section 38. That is a decision at local level.

Yesterday, Mr. Ryan and I spoke about the tender for Local Link, which I understand is in process and has been extended. As it is probably our only source of public transport in rural Ireland, I am concerned that the morale of Local Link may be affected by a protracted process. There are issues with employees unable to get mortgages on the basis of a contract that is not being renewed or whatever. The NTA needs to take cognisance of that. Mr. Ryan told me yesterday that it was not obliged to award a contract. I understand that but I do not think it is helpful in the scenario under which I am bringing the topic to his attention. That should happen as soon as practically possible.

I want a few notes on different things. I would like the NTA to provide a note on the satisfaction surveys it intends to carry out. There was mention of June and July. July is not the optimum time to do surveys, with people being away and that.

I ask the NTA to give us a note on how it is going to conduct that and what kinds of questions it is going to ask.

I am interested in how the NTA evaluates the investment against traffic congestion or rather, a reduction in congestion. How is that measured? Is it the Department or the NTA that measures it? I also ask for a note on the L services on BusConnects, wherever they are rolled out, and the support buses that are required for those. What is the cost of those? I ask that the note would include a breakdown of the cost per kilometre and also the out-of-service buses.

When the NTA redesigns timetables, it engages with communities. I am thinking of the example of the 115 bus where there was a high level of engagement with the community but then we ended up with an unreliable service. People were very happy with the timetable but then there were no-shows and quite a lot of buses turning up late. If we take that as an example, did the NTA examine whether it could deliver the service? People were happy with the timetable but then it was not supported with delivery. Fines are not enough. In fact, we do not want fines; we want the service to be provided. It is very disappointing when people have engaged and are satisfied with the new timetable but then it does not happen. What does the NTA do to make sure that is going to happen?

One of the issues that arises after we redo a timetable is that we find the journey time has increased as a result of increased road congestion. We are constantly engaging with the operators and examining whether the journey time they have built into their timetable is sufficient to actually operate the service efficiently and punctually. What we find is that they often underestimate the journey time. Some of the designs would have been done in the Covid years when traffic congestion would have been lower, and then we see a very significant increase in traffic congestion-----

Yes, but we need to understand that road congestion has an impact on journey times. Operators do their best to analyse, based on the data they have, what the journey times are and they put in an updated timetable but that needs to be done a significant number of times. I will give the example of Cork, where we have looked at road congestion and what it is doing to the bus services there. On one route we see that since 2019, congestion has added ten minutes to one particular service at each peak time. One very short route has been delayed by at least ten minutes between one part of the day and another. Deputy Murphy can imagine what it would do to the 115 service if we had similar levels of congestion growing at that rate on the route.

That is telling us something. We are starting to see that tenure type and costs in the city centre means that people are moving further out. In fact, the city is not growing in the way it was planned to grow in the mid-1990s. The plan was that there would be higher density housing in the city centre and lower density housing further out. What is happening now is that fully formed families are arriving out in Kildare so we cannot predict the demand for school places or public transport. There is no doubt that people are commuting longer. The origin of the problem is the housing issue but the NTA has to respond to it.

Yes, we have to respond to it. BusConnects and its sustainable transport corridors are about at least providing space from one end of the journey to the other where we know we can predict the journey time on a much more reliable basis for those services. That is what we are trying to deliver on all of the 12 corridors leading into the city centre. We are also planning to go beyond that because there are certain locations on the motorway network, for example, where we believe with hard shoulder running, particularly in the morning peaks, we can find ways to give priority to those longer-distance services. We have to work with local authorities to ensure that as those bus services are going into towns like Navan and Naas they are not held up in the traffic and that priority is given to buses in the towns as well. A huge amount of work is required now to deliver much better priority for public transport to enable it to deliver an efficient service and we would welcome the Deputy's support in that regard.

I have a question on Dart+ West and Dart+ South West. I hope I have the names right but I am referring to the service to Hazelhatch, although I would like it to go further, and the service to Kilcock. What forward planning is the NTA doing in relation to rolling stock? Is sufficient stock available? I understand that there is a long lead-in time. Is the NTA holding off until it sees whether the railway order comes through or is it planning ahead? Obviously, if there is going to be increased frequency, there is going to be increased demand.

We are planning ahead with Irish Rail. Two large orders for battery electric fleet have been placed in order to be able to build up the capacity of those services ahead of the electrification of the overhead wires being put in place. We are forward planning so that we can deliver capacity well ahead in a way that means that even if there is no railway order, we can operate trains on those services.

Finally, I want to ask about the L58. I am not talking about taking a service away from people but I told the NTA it would not work before it was introduced. I do not think it was the original plan and it is not meeting people's needs. The service is there but obviously people are not using it. That said, we cannot leave people stuck either. There is a big industrial development planned for the area and there are new housing estates on the way. Is the NTA willing to look again at something like the L58, which is not working, and rather than abandon the service, provide one that meets people's needs?

We have looked at the L58. We agree that we are not really getting the demand that we had hoped for on the route. It has gone to an hourly service now. The additional cost of providing a direct inter-peak or weekend link further into the city centre, for example, could not really be justified. Part of the current service at the River Forest stand will be diverted to Confey station at some point and that will definitely help. However, that depends on Irish Rail's project to alter the road bridge at the station so it is a little way off, unfortunately.

What about reconfiguring the route to Liffey Valley? Mr. Ryan said the NTA cannot justify running a bus into the city centre but it is justifying a route that has a low take-up. How can he justify the latter and not the former? There is still a bus running but it is just not going where people want it to go, which is why they are not using it. I cannot get my head around that. It is not that there is no bus and no driver. It just does not make any sense and is an example of what we are going to see in other places.

Generally, where we have provided a service we have seen a very significant increase in users. This is an unusual case in terms of passenger numbers. Once we have put in a link, even if there are very few users, it is very hard for us to take that link away completely. We will always look to see if we can make it a much more usable link. We would like to give it a little bit more time before we make any decision to withdraw it completely or to make an amendment to it.

Okay, so the NTA will review that.

I forgot to ask something earlier about bus shelters. The local authority designates the area for a bus shelter. The councillors and the area engineers, through the local authority, designate where a bus stop goes.

The local authority does the accommodation works, but then there is a rigmarole. In the case of Mountmellick, the local authority put up the bus shelter in the square. This is going back a few years ago now. Is it possible that we could devolve the provision of bus shelters to the local authorities? The fact that I have to write to Ms Graham about a bus shelter in Castletown is bananas. That needs to be devolved down to local authority level. Earmark it and provision it. Just give them the cash.

Could I briefly ask the witnesses about consultants and the cost of hiring them? Deputy Ó Cathasaigh alluded to this in his discussions with the witnesses. I refer to the reply to a parliamentary question tabled in 2022 on the spending involved, which, in that year, was substantial. Some €10.294 million went to Ernst and Young. What was that for? What services did it provide to the NTA?

We are obviously required to check how passengers feel about our services. We would do a detailed customer satisfaction survey, and not just on public transport services. Deputies have asked us to do more detailed surveys with regard to BusConnects delivery, which we are planning to do. We also look at the TFI Local Link services not just in terms of satisfaction but also awareness of services. There is a range of surveys that Behaviour and Attitudes would do for us over the year on many different aspects of our services.

A good deal of that is around notification of services. On BusConnects, there is a huge amount of public information that needs to be put in place, particularly when we are changing a service, like booklets and all the media advertising associated with it, and just general awareness about services and service changes.

I thank Ms Graham. I thank the witnesses from the Department and the NTA for their work in preparing for today's meeting. I acknowledge the fairly extensive briefing notes they provided. I also thank the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff for attending and assisting the committee.

Is it agreed that the clerk will seek any follow-up information and carry out any actions arising from the meeting? Agreed. Is it also agreed that we note and publish the opening statements and briefings provided for today's meeting? Agreed. We will suspend until 1.30 p.m., at which time we will resume in public session.