Bus row offers a chance to tackle transport realities
Taxpayers remain on the hook for a system of public transport provision that is crying out for fundamental reform, writes Colm McCarthy
WHILE the suspension of strike notice at Bus Eireann and the resumption of talks between unions and management may result in some form of interim settlement, the underlying problems at the company, and more broadly in the CIE bus and rail business, are not being addressed. Demand for intercity public transport is in decline and the costs of meeting this demand through the CIE model are excessive. The minister has wisely kept away from the talks, keeping the taxpayers’ chequebook out of danger for now. But the taxpayer remains on the hook for a system of public transport provision crying out for fundamental reform.
Breathless reportage to the effect that 110,000 commuters (the daily average number of Bus Eireann return journeys) faced ‘chaos’, the term employed repeatedly on RTE broadcasts, had tomorrow’s strike gone ahead is a considerable exaggeration. Many Bus Eireann users can take a bus provided by private operators, take a train or cadge a lift. Indeed, just last week the National Transport Authority shrugged off the management’s discontinuation of some Expressway services with the observation that alternative bus and rail services are already adequate, raising the rather obvious question of the need for a State bus company at all.
In 2014, the Central Statistics Office surveyed more than 10,000 households about their travel habits. They found that only 4.4pc of trips made by Irish adults use the bus. This percentage includes private bus companies and Dublin Bus. The portion of adults relying on Bus Eireann, which provides intercity, rural and provincial city services, must be well under 2pc of the total — the private companies are popular on many routes and Dublin Bus serves more daily journeys than all of Bus Eireann’s operations put together.
The all-out strike still looming at Bus Eireann follows the (arguably illegal) industrial action threatened by members of An Garda Siochana late last year. On that occasion, the Government effectively capitulated by permitting the Labour Court to make an award which has already had knock-on consequences for the public pay bill. There is a difference though: An Garda Siochana is a monopoly, as are the schools and hospital systems where strikes are also possible due to the undermining of the Lansdowne Road Agreement. Bus Eireann is just one among many actual and potential providers of public passenger transport.
The National Transport Authority’s conclusions on management proposals to cut or scrap some Expressway routes are revealing. The Authority is responsible for the allocation of licences to bus operators and the distribution of state cash to Bus Eireann for routes deemed to be non-commercial. All of Bus Eireann’s Expressway routes are meant to be unsubsidised and most of them have competitors. The company’s management announced its intention to scrap three routes and to cut frequency on two more, Limerick to Dublin and Galway to Dublin. These are two of the busiest intercity routes in the country, are served by regular rail services which enjoy enormous subsidies and there are private operators offering frequent scheduled bus services on both routes. For example, on Dublin-Limerick, between Expressway and its main private competitor, weekly combined frequency will be 218 services, down from 242 before the announced Expressway cuts, plus frequent train departures. Not surprisingly, the authority proposed no response to the frequency reduction by Expressway and took the same view, for the same reason, in the case of Dublin-Galway.
Bus Eireann management also announced the complete withdrawal of service on Clonmel-Dublin and Derry-Dublin. In both cases, the authority deemed the existing alternative services to be adequate. In just one of five routes identified for service reduction or withdrawal, Westport to Athlone, did the authority choose to offer increased subsidy, thus activating the aforementioned taxpayers’ chequebook.
Back in the 1990s, when the Irish government finally got around to the construction of a proper national road network, it was obvious, and was widely noted, that there would be consequences for intercity transport. Unsubsidised air services between Dublin and Cork have disappeared, a consequence of the disappearance of the tailbacks in Fermoy, Mitchelstown, Abbeyleix and elsewhere. The delights of an unexpected half-hour in Mountrath have similarly been denied travellers from Limerick to Dublin, resulting in the demise of air links between Dublin and Shannon.
There were subsidised air connections at one time between Dublin and the cities of Galway, Sligo and Waterford, now a stress-free two-hour car trip. But the response of government to the inevitable increased popularity of car and bus travel was to spend hundreds of millions on rail improvements, resulting in extra capacity and further pressure on Expressway.
The weakness of the trade union position is precisely that a Bus Eireann strike can cause only limited ‘chaos’, because Bus Eireann is no longer a key provider of passenger transport in Ireland. Some travellers would indeed be inconvenienced but the only strength in the trade union case is that Bus Eireann is State-owned and trade unions in State-companies enjoy unusual privileges in Ireland. Minister Shane Ross is reluctant to ‘settle’ the dispute, occasioned by a pay claim against a company facing insolvency, with taxpayer cash. This is unsporting of the minister and he has been roundly denounced for inactivity.
Solutions were offered in the Dail last week by both the Labour Party and Sinn Fein. Labour suggested that the bus sector should be covered by a binding overall pay-and-conditions deal, imposing the excess payroll costs of Bus Eireann on its competitors. Sinn Fein suggested that the licences (already restrictive) available to private bus companies should be further curtailed. Either ‘solution’ would screw bus customers, taxpayers, or both. Nobody in the Dail had the imagination to suggest the closure of the motorways, which would surely push people back on to public transport.
The elephant in the public transport room is actually Irish Rail, not Bus Eireann or Dublin Bus. Both of the bus companies are unable to cover their capital and operating costs from customer revenue and there are sizeable subsidies.
A case can, of course, be made for subsidies for public transport, but it is weak, and contrary to EU directives, in intercity transport where private operators are willing to offer unsubsidised service. But the subsidy cost of CIE bus operations, which carry far more passengers, is dwarfed by the annual subvention to Irish Rail. Between capital and operating subvention, the railway company received over €300m in 2015, more than the entire revenue of Bus Eireann.
In order to deflect the accusations of inactivity, the minister should consider three initiatives while the management-union negotiations proceed. He should prepare and publish a factual comparison of pay and productivity in Bus Eireann and in the unsubsidised private bus sector. He should make it clear that licence restrictions on the scheduling and capacity of the private bus companies will be suspended if there is a renewed threat of strike action against Bus Eireann. There is no need for army lorries this time round.
Finally he should clarify that Bus Eireann will face no penalties for non-performance of contracted services occasioned by a trade union dispute.
The Bus Eireann row is an opportunity to come to terms with the new realities in Irish public transport.
‘The weakness in the trade union case is a strike will not cause much chaos’