Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2022-12-13
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Bríd Smith (PBP), Dublin South-Central

We all know that the housing shortage is creating a void in respect of the number of workers who are available in essential services like education and health, but this is also true in transport. Thankfully, recently, the Minister for Transport did a U-turn on the insane idea that we need 1 million electric vehicle, EV, cars on the road to replace 1 million petrol cars, with a much greater concentration on public transport.
How does the Government propose to deal with the question of recruitment and retention of bus drivers in Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland? All three companies are having very significant difficulty retaining bus drivers. The main reason for this - and this has been shown through their unions and in surveys - is that the companies start the drivers on much lower pay compared to their more senior colleagues. The second reason is that the shifts have become very onerous. They have very little work-life balance and time with their families and it does not suit young workers. Will the Government sit down with the National Transport Authority, NTA, and look at the model where companies have to compete with one another for contracts in public transport? That is effectively driving a race to the bottom and causing us to lose, and not to retain, hundreds of young drivers.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-12-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:25+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-12-13