Sir, – An unspoken drive to privatise our transport network will have a detrimental effect on rural communities, as has been the case in England, where these services have been degraded and fares have increased by 156 per cent between 1995 and 2016. The consumer price index in the same period was 77 per cent.
Despite what some politicians may like to think, the public does not have the memory of the proverbial goldfish. Citizens in Ireland are fully alive to the fact that governments have paid and continue to pay billions in public monies to unguaranteed bondholders who took a gamble in failed banks. Some gamble!
The wages of Bus Éireann workers are very far from extravagant.
The attempt by Government and the National Transport Authority to hollow out those hard-won terms and conditions via apparent collateral damage is as outrageous as the rush to feather-bed millionaires in banks and the building industry with public money. May it not succeed. – Yours, etc,
JOHN SULLIVAN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
A chara, – Bus Éireann is a publicly funded transport company that services routes and towns that have been ignored by the profit-driven private operators, of which there are now a great many. Yet Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross appears to think the financial problems of Bus Éireann are not his problems.
Now that the inevitable has happened and a strike is on the cards, Mr Ross is “disappointed” yet still refuses to intervene in a dispute involving a crucial piece of the public transport network, perhaps hoping that “free market principles” will dictate a resolution to what is a national and public issue.
As it appears that Mr Ross does not quite fancy the transport part of his portfolio, perhaps a proportional cut in his salary would be appropriate. – Is mise,
SIMON O’CONNOR,
Crumlin,
Dublin 12.