New bus terminus should be on Dublin's 'periphery'

A new national bus terminus should be located on the perimeter of Dublin rather than the city centre, according to Minister for Transport Martin Cullen.

Mr Cullen expects to decide before the end of this Dáil session on the allocation of 100 buses this year and a further 100 next year to Dublin Bus, in the context of the bus network review and bus market reform proposals.

"We are close to the end game in these issues and I want to bring them to a conclusion very quickly during this session," he said.

The Minister said that while it was a "matter for the future" he would like to see a "new major national bus terminus for all inter-city traffic on the periphery of Dublin, where passengers would be redistributed to all the different points to which people want to go".

It was "not true that everybody travelling on an inter-city coach into Dublin wants to end up in O'Connell Street or in Busáras", he added.

Catherine Murphy (Ind, Kildare North) said the issue of bus transport was "not just a question of putting buses on the road, the other infrastructure is also required. It is desperately difficult to find space in the city centre for a bus terminus." Ms Murphy was concerned about the level of service for Kildare.

It "seems there is a dispute between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats as to the extent the Dublin Bus network will be privatised", she said.

Mr Cullen said he had no plans to privatise Dublin Bus.

Fine Gael's transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said that "ten years ago Dublin Bus had just less than 1,000 buses. Now it has just over 1,000 buses despite the fact that the population has gone up by over 250,000 and geographically Dublin has grown beyond recognition", but the increased demand had been completely unmet.