On February 15th, when the NBRU's rolling campaign of industrial action was about to get under way, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, told the Dail that she was "in regular contact with the management and unions in Dublin Bus to ascertain if a basis can be found for negotiations that will lead to an early satisfactory resolution of this dispute".

Just three weeks later, however, Ms O'Rourke was on RTE Radio insisting that she "never interfered in the last few months" in the affairs of Dublin Bus. At that time, she was under pressure because the chairman of CIE, Brian Joyce, had resigned citing, among other things, interference from Government which "completely undermines the management . . . and leaves them defenceless against any form of industrial action". "Interference" had become a bad thing, so a Minister who had been anxious to claim a hands-on approach a few weeks earlier was now anxious to deny it.

This week, the same pattern was repeated. One day Bertie Ahern was praising Mary O'Rourke for her wonderful efforts to resolve the dispute. The next, the Minister herself was back on Morning Ireland insisting that she was playing no part in the dispute.

The public is left to figure out how "regular contact" by the sole shareholder in Dublin Bus was not "interference" in the dispute and how the Minister was playing a blinder without setting so much as a foot on the pitch. On the one hand, no one close to the dispute seriously doubts that Mary O'Rourke is in "regular contact", albeit on a private basis, with the unions and Dublin Bus management. On the other hand, she is happy to profess complete ignorance of issues like the one that disrupted main-line train services this week, telling Morning Ireland listeners yesterday that she does not know what the contractors working on track maintenance are paid.

Here, in microcosm, is the bewilderment that has left public transport in such a mess. The difficulty of working out what precise role the Minister is meant to play in the affairs of the CIE companies is merely the most vivid symptom of a confusion that surrounds the whole area of public transport policy.

In recent weeks, for example, media reports based on off-the-record Civil Service and Government sources have suggested that CIE is to be split up into its component parts, that officials are in discussion with a British transport company regarding the privatisation of CIE, that the Luas system, when it is finally built, will not be run by CIE and that a £4 billion pound metro system is being planned for Dublin. But no one working in the area seems to know which of these suggestions are actually policy plans, which are kites being flown to test opinion and which are mere rumour.

Even the central plank of likely future policy for the bus system in Dublin under EU competition law - a scheme for "public service contracts" under which publicly subsidised routes would be put out to tender, with Dublin Bus given a virtual guarantee that it will receive them for the first few years - is now in doubt.

On Wednesday, the Fine Gael spokesman on Public Enterprise, Ivan Yates, alleged in the Dail that public service contracts have been "ripped up" by the Government in the past few weeks. Mary O'Rourke neither confirmed nor denied the allegation. And this, in the midst of the biggest public transport crisis in decades, has been her style. She tends to refer all queries on crucial policy issues to some study or report that is not yet available. One of the central issues in the Dublin Bus dispute, for example, is the level of subsidy to the company. Because it is among the lowest in the developed world, the drivers feel that they are effectively subsidising the Government through their own low wages. So what does the Minister think is the appropriate level of subvention?

Asked about this in the Dail this week, she said that she had "asked the Department to engage somebody to examine the policy on subvention. It engaged a person from UCD. When the report is given to me, we will, I hope, debate it in the House. . . I have not even received a draft of it and, therefore, cannot comment." So current Government policy on the core issue in a dispute that has left hundreds of thousands of citizens walking to work is to wait and see what a "person from UCD" thinks.

And what, aside from all the leaks and rumours, is the real policy on the liberalisation of the public transport market? Last November the Government took a decision to review the legislation that controls that market, the Transport Act of 1932. So far, the review seems to consist of putting ads in the newspapers seeking submissions from interested parties. One part of the Government, the Progressive Democrats, have published a draft policy document calling for the "re-regulation" of the market. The other part, Fianna Fail, has given very little concrete indication of its thinking.

It is this policy vacuum that makes it so difficult to resolve the current dispute. On the one hand, Mary O'Rourke more or less conceded this week that the bus drivers are badly paid. Referring to their basic wage in the Dail this week she said: "I am not saying that is a wonderful wage - far from it." On the other hand, she insists that they can improve their lot only by paying for their own wage increases through extra productivity.

This may or may not be a reasonable policy. But even taking it in its own terms, it should be obvious that real productivity increases can take place only within the context of a clear strategy for the development of Dublin Bus and of public transport as a whole. Unless productivity measures are to be thought of merely as a face-saving device that keeps the drivers somehow within the terms of the Partnership for Prosperity and Fairness, they have to contribute in a genuine way to the growth and efficiency of Dublin Bus. Without having a clear picture of the medium-term future, though, it is hard to say just how efficient any changes would be.

The policy vacuum also contributes to a level of mistrust that makes the unions understandably suspicious of hidden agendas. One way to achieve the £9 million in savings that Dublin Bus says it needs to fund a wage increase, for example, might be through the unions agreeing to the contracting out of some new bus services. Since Dublin Bus is overstretched in trying to service an expanding city, this might make sense in the short term and could be done without in any way threatening the jobs of the company's current employees.

But with so much leaking of radical privatisation plans, the unions are strongly inclined to see such a measure as "the thin end of the wedge". Quite simply, if you don't know where the bus is going, you're not inclined to step aboard. And when the ministerial driver keeps talking in riddles, it's hard to believe the journey will be safe.

fotoole@irish-times.ie