THE CHIEF executive of Dublin Bus Joe Meagher is stepping down from the job later this year after leading the State-owned company for the past five years, staff were told last Friday.

A spokeswoman for the company said that Mr Meagher had decided to retire in November at the age of 59 after 14 years as chief executive of Iarnród Éireann and later Dublin Bus.

Mr Meagher was appointed chief executive of Dublin Bus in May 2005 after spending eight years as chief executive of Iarnród Éireann. Prior to that he was the first business development manager at Bus Éireann after the company was established in 1987.

He led a cost-cutting plan at Dublin Bus last year under which the company secured 290 voluntary redundancies, reducing its fleet by 10 per cent or 100 buses.

The plan was introduced after the company reported a reduction in passenger numbers and the loss of €12 million from the withdrawal of a fuel duty rebate.

Earlier this month State-owned transport company CIÉ reported that Dublin Bus, one of its subsidiaries, posted a deficit of €12.9 million for 2009 after customer journeys dropped by 10.6 per cent during the year.

Customer journeys at Dublin Bus dropped to 128.3 million in 2009 from 143.5 million the previous year – in line with a similar decline at Bus Éireann.

Mr Meagher warned at an Oireachtas committee last year that Dublin Bus would lose €31.5 million for 2009 without the company’s cost-cutting programme.

Overall revenues at CIÉ dropped back to 2006 levels after slumping by €47 million in 2009 to €742 million. This left the company with a loss of €77.7 million for the year compared with a profit of €10.2 million the previous year. Payroll costs at CIÉ fell to €579.9 million in 2009 from €616 million the previous year.

Dublin Bus has a workforce of about 3,700, two thirds of whom are drivers of the company’s fleet of about 1,000 buses.

It was one of the first State companies to tackle costs as revenues began to decline due to the recession.