Cllr. Ted Tynan of the Workers’ Party has deplored the decision by the National Transport Authority (NTA) to privatise yet more routes operated by Bus Éireann and said that instead the NTA itself should be abolished.

Cllr. Tynan said that since its inception the NTA had shown that it was only interested in pursuing an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation.

He said: “The NTA’s statement that its further privatisation decision would lead to better services for commuters is a blatant lie and this is borne out by evidence from abroad where publicly run transport is shown to attract more commuters than where transport is privatised”.

The Cork city councillor said: “The National Transport Authority’s decision to hand over a significant tranche of Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus routes to the private UK operator Go Ahead shows a cavalier attitude to this country’s transport needs. It should be pointed out that Go Ahead’s sister rail company, Southern Trains ,who operate rail services in the South of England was voted the worst rail operator there two years in a row, due to the appalling level of service it provided”

Cllr. Tynan said: “The NTA has also shown it’s incompetence in its proposal to introduce orbital bus routes in Dublin and this was shown by the massive negative reaction of the public to this proposal”

“It’s handling of the Dublin cross city LUAS and the disruption this caused shows the this Thatcherite quango is as good at running public transport as Basil Fawlty was at running a hotel”.

The Workers’ Party calls for the abolition of the National Transport and the transfer of its functions to the CIÉ holding company which is the way that most European public transport is run such as in Paris where the RATP is both the regulator and operator of all public transport .