IE fights Irish dere
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1GGESTIONS that deregual local bus services should introduced in the Irish Retalk have been repudiated Coras lompair Eireann iirman Paul Conlon in an dress given last week to the nerick Rotary Club.
A current Irish Government reen Paper questions tether Ireland should move im its current highly regued framework — which is lenly abused by many .erators — to a more liberal ;hue which would provide r competition. It says the :reased activity by private ■ erators running illegal serxs suggests a need for view.
Conlon agrees with the ed for a review, hut sug gests that it should not be tiesigned to bring illegal activities within the law.
Using arguments familiar in the pre-deregulation debate in Great Britain, Conlon argued that independent operators' main goal is to "cream ow profitable routes from the public sector.
He also argued for the retention of cross-subsidy and service co-ordination, and suggested that liberalisation would reduce levels of safety and reliability.
In his view, any review of passenger transport, governed by a 1932 Transport Act, should update penalties for illegal operation.
The maximum fine under the 1932 Act is IRI:30. He suggested that its present-day value should be over IRS:1,000 and that any new Bill should be structured to enable a simple revision of penalty I le also wants the Irish Communications Minister to be given the power to revoke or suspend any road passenger certificate of competence and suggests a need to define private hire to allow services to he identified without any ambiguity and the regulations enforced without any real difficulty.
Finally, he declared, there is scope for the establishment of a traffic court system to ensure proper enforcement of the regulations in the Republic of Ireland.