Bus strikes may lead to more privatisation

How threat to escalate dispute may hit drivers’ pay over the longer term

STRIKING Dublin Bus drivers may have shot themselves in the foot because the State firm may lose some routes to privatisation.

The news comes as the five unions involved in the dispute, that left 40,000 commuters stranded, may extend their on-off series of strikes into next month.

Already they plan to follow this week’s stoppages with strikes next Thursday and Friday and again, hitting weekend travellers, on September 16 and 17.

Much will depend on the unions’ decisions when they meet on Thursday, but hanging over their talks will be the fact that the Government wants to allocate as many as one in ten Dublin Bus routes to private firms. While that plan was postponed in the face of union protests, some routes are to be allocated next year, and the present strikes may weaken Dublin Bus’s ability to retain them. Routes targeted are in the capital’s ‘outer metropolitan’ area and they include areas such as Saggart, Blanchardstown, Leixlip, Maynooth and Balbriggan.

The National Transport Authority said that ‘continuity of service’ would be a key part of securing any privatised route contracts in a tendering process. A spokeswoman said no break in service would be allowed to any company securing the new contracts.

An escalated dispute will hit Dublin Bus’s efforts to keep up to 10% of its outer Dublin routes which as it competes for them against private competitors. This is despite National Bus and Rail Union members threatening disruption, two years ago, if existing routes were privatised.

It will be a high price for the unions who fear that bus drivers in privately-owned companies will drive down pay rates and employment conditions. Already this week Dublin Bus has had €400,000 in subsidies withheld due to the two-day stoppages and is likely to be hit for many millions in lost fares and withheld subsidies for the other strikes this month.

The NTA is slow in organising the tender process, which was supposed to have been completed by this summer. The original plan was to put around 10% of the Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann Public Service Obligation routes out to tenders. These are among the least profitable routes and include:

The Outer Dublin metropolitan routes (that are currently operated by the Dublin Bus company)

Dublin/Kildare corridor (currently operated by Bus Éireann) Waterford City routes (currently operated by Bus Éireann) NTA spokeswoman, Sara Morris said a tender ‘pre-qualification process’ resulting in shortlisting has taken place for all three areas. Billy Tyson’s analysis – Page 23 news@mailonsunday.ie

No break in service will be key to new contracts