Missing the bus Last year, the Finance Minister budgeted €10 million for public transport subsidy. Fairly reasonable, I would say. The only thing that was not factored in was that the Labour government is totally and hopelessly incapable of running such a service. Now, I’m not so daft as to think that an efficient public transport service does not require subsidies. The market already provides a wide range of transport services with vehicles large and small, contemporary and vintage, self-driven or chauffeured. Had it been possible to offer an unsubsidised, nationwide, scheduled service at a profit, rest assured that an entrepreneur would have stepped in long ago. But there are subsidies and then there are black holes which suck in huge amounts of public funds. In the first three months of this year, the government blew no less than €7 million on the service, the same amount it gave Arriva in an entire year. Add to that a seven per cent fall in ticket revenue, the mothballing of the weekday late evening and night service and the re-appearance of buses which are not designed for people with mobility problems and you start to worry.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 06:30:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015