Case study: Dublin Bus driver Colm Meagher

Colm Meagher (48), from Fairview, Dublin, has been a bus driver with Dublin Bus for 20 years and works out of Clontarf garage. He is married with a 14-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter.

The work is split into early, middle of the day and late shifts. “It can be stressful,” he says. “It’s not very family-conducive when you’re missing at different times every week. There’s no regularity. Your eating times are not regular, which lends itself to piling on weight.”

In terms of the day-to-day work and dealing with the public, he says they “never fail to surprise”.

“You’ve no control over their actions or the condition they might be in.

“During the day we’re dealing with elderly people who rely on the buses to get them to the post office or the shop. You have to have care for them and their movement around the bus.

Nightclubs

“Then in the evening you’re ferrying people to and from pubs and nightclubs, with groups of youths, so it’s a wide variance of what you would put up with through a day. You can never really predict what you’ll face and when you’ll face it.

Mr Meagher is a representative for the National Bus and Rail Union at his garage. He says “by no stretch of the imagination” are the current pay and conditions satisfactory for drivers.

“We haven’t had a pay rise since 2008. In that time we’ve had to deal with the universal social charge, property tax, water rates. Plus, we went through an awful lot of austerity measures in the company.

“They didn’t reduce the basic pay but they did reduce the terms and conditions and the entitlements that we had. That had an impact on us. I find myself I have to work at least one of my days off every week, if it’s available to me, to try and bring up the wages. If there’s an availability of overtime or trips that need to be covered, I will look for them.”

Pay claim

He says bus drivers have been seeking a pay rise for an extended period of time. “It’s 18 months ago that we put in for a pay claim, before the Luas [pay claim] ever came along.

“We’re owed an outstanding 6 per cent since 2008 as part of the social partnership deal that we were never paid. The company claimed an inability to pay.

“We’re putting something on top of that because of the things I’ve just mentioned there. Most other places out there seem to be coming along with pay rises.”

He adds: “The survival of the company over the years has been down to the drivers taking the cuts they had to and the changes in work practices. It’s clear now from passenger numbers that they’re way up beyond the level they were in 2008. The money is there.