The National Transport Authority (NTA) intends to reduce the share of bus routes operated by the state-owned Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus to between 60% to 70% nationally in a tendering process scheduled for late 2024.
SIPTU Sector Organiser, John Murphy, said: “The NTA has announced its intention to directly award public bus contracts, similar to their current size to size Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus in December 2024. While this is welcome, owing to the significant increase in services over recent years, the actual market share for both state-owned bus companies will be reduced to around 60-70% of the bus route market under these plans.
“In 2015 the NTA introduced the policy of Bus Market Opening (BMO). This provoked extensive negotiations between SIPTU and other unions with the management of Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus, the NTA and the Department of Transport. While SIPTU resisted the tendering and privatisation of all bus routes, ultimately a political decision was made to tender 10% of them. SIPTU put forward a six-point plan to deal with the effects of BMO and while we did achieve five of these six points, we were unable to ensure labour costs were not a factor in awarding contracts.
“While most of the current bus services will continue to be ‘directly awarded’ to Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus, the fact that up to 13 different operators were involved in a recent pre-tender process shows the appetite of large private operators to enter the Irish bus market.
“In December 2023, SIPTU representatives attended a European Transport Federation protest and demonstration outside the EU Parliament in Brussels over potential plans by the EU Commission to force all member states to openly tender all future public transport contracts in road and rail. If this plan was to be implemented it could severely impact not only members’ terms, conditions and security of employment, it would also negatively impact the excellent service provided to those dependent on public transport.
“Many within the Irish political arena they want all services privatised as they hold the misguided view that this will achieve ‘value for money’ to the taxpayer. The proponents of this agenda appear to know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. We only have to look at the impact of privatisation of transport in the UK to see how billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being poured into the coffers of private operators at the expense of decent services and decent jobs.”
He added: “SIPTU will continue to campaign and lobby for public transport services to remain public, for direct award contracts to the national carriers and investment in the industry. We need members support in these efforts. This can be best achieved by getting organised and encouraging all industry workers to join SIPTU. United we stand, divided we fall.”