Fine Gael has proposed the establishment of an independent authority, along the lines of the Independent Radio and Television Commission, to regulate a new competitive regime for road passenger transport.
The party's transport spokesman, Mr Ivan Yates TD, said that the present law, which purported to regulate both CIE and privately-operated bus services, was "quite simply an ass", because it was being ignored.
"On inter-city routes to and from Dublin, on a daily basis, private operators are providing a timetable service which is unlicensed and illegal", he said. The notion that these private operators were "travel clubs" was a farce.
But he said EU directives meant that the problem could no longer be avoided. "These competitive services need to be properly regulated with minimum standards and real competition for the travelling public."
Calling for a complete overhaul of the 1932 Road Transport Act, Mr Yates said that Fine Gael was "very concerned about the real isolation being suffered by many people in rural areas because they don't have a car".
The party leader, Mr John Bruton, said that better public transport was the only solution, both in cities and rural areas. "Otherwise, we will have a society where you're not really a citizen unless you have a car."
Mr Bruton pointed out that there was no bus service between Ashbourne and Navan, the largest two towns in his Co Meath constituency. He claimed that the same timetables had been operating on other routes since 1922.
Fine Gael is proposing an additional allocation of £100 million over five years to develop public transport services. Mr Yates said that this should be shared between CIE and licensed private bus operators. He made it clear, however, that the party does not favour the type of bus transport deregulation which took place in Britain under Mrs Margaret Thatcher and is now widely seen not to have delivered.
The party has proposed developing a national network of localised bus services, for example, by providing other scheduled services through use of the many school buses which lie idle during most of the day.
It also believes that competition, rather than privatisation, would be the best way to reform CIE, where Mr Yates said negotiations on a viability package were proceeding "at the pace of the slowest snail".
The advent of public service contracts would allow subsidies to individual routes and enable their social-service element to be transparently identified so that they could then be put out to competitive tender.
Fine Gael is also proposing that the existing debts of Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus be eliminated on the advent of competition. It wants the market regulated to curtail black-economy operators.
