James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am very familiar with the issues the Deputy has raised, both as a Minister of State and as a TD. I see them in my constituency as well as seeing them across the country. We will be introducing revised contracts from 1 December. We are a month away from that. Key performance metrics will be included as part of the criteria for those contracts to outsourced services and will be a tangible, measurable part of their contract fulfilment to ensure performance is at the heart of it. That is being built into the contract from 1 December onward.

The Deputy asked whether fines have been issued. Multiple fines have been issued. Fines continue to be issued where providers are not making their agreed service levels. I met with the providers yesterday. Earlier, I mentioned that I met Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Go-Ahead and many others. I meet the NTA regularly. I will be meeting its representatives again this afternoon as part of our regular engagement.

I am aware of the issues in the Deputy's area. Councillor Caroline O'Reilly has been very vocal and brought them to my attention a number of times. I have looked into the service the Deputy mentioned as a result. I am also familiar with services across the country as representatives such as the Deputy, Councillor O'Reilly and others are rightly telling me what the issues are in their areas. In the three and a half months I have had this job, I have been trying to tackle those issues and raise them with the NTA and the providers. We have made progress. We are seeing the new contracts coming in on 1 December, which will bake in performance delivery as a key metric for the first time. The €29 million that is there today will include further supports for things like capacity on those routes, for reliability. It is really important that we provide a high-quality public service, and that is what we are trying to do.