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Bust Éireann

oppenheimer1

According to reports today, Bus Eireann has about 18 months left before it goes insolvent. The company lost 7m last year on top of accumulated losses for previous years.

What future does the company have? Looks like service cuts and forced redundancies are on the way at a minimum. Do you think they will sell off expressway?

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Grandeeod

end of the road wrote: »

there is no, nor was ever, any holding of the state/country or anyone to ransom by strikes. strikes cause inconvenience but sometimes it is necessary for the greater good of improving things. i believe here a strike isn't the way to go but i have to trust that the bus eireann staff have weighed up the pros and cons and have made their decisian based on the facts availible and have decided they haven't an option, rightly or wrongly. it can still be called off and i hope it will. the breaking up of CIE will come down to whether the government wishes to pay more over all.

So any news on when there were strikes in the private bus sector, just so you can actually back up what you have said.

Well????

devnull

end of the road wrote: »

there is no, nor was ever, any holding of the state/country or anyone to ransom by strikes. strikes cause inconvenience but sometimes it is necessary for the greater good of improving things.

The greater good is a common expression which refers to the fact that you are doing something that most likely will not benefit you but many other people will benefit. I just thought I'd underline that because you appear not to know what the phrase means.

The difference between myself and you is that I believe that a public transport system should put the public first and improve the level of services to the public and this is the greater good and considered as improvements.

You seem to believe that the interests of the staff are more important than that where they come into conflict with that of the public, the staff should be deemed as more important, which basically undermines the whole reason public companies are set up in the first place.

oppenheimer1

A quick question for those on the side of the BE Unions. How do you propose that this impasse be solved seeing as the company is four months from insolvency?

Remember, the state cannot give aid to the company as that is illegal. Remember also that the terms of employment of the staff far exceed those of similar private operators.

I'd love to hear some solutions from those that say cuts and redundancies are not the answer.

end of the road

Grandeeod wrote: »

So any news on when there were strikes in the private bus sector, just so you can actually back up what you have said.

Well????

you got an answer to this question in the original thread where it was discussed. i believe it was the luas thread.

devnull wrote: »

The greater good is a common expression which refers to the fact that you are doing something that most likely will not benefit you but many other people will benefit. I just thought I'd underline that because you appear not to know what the phrase means.

The difference between myself and you is that I believe that a public transport system should put the public first and improve the level of services to the public and this is the greater good and considered as improvements.

You seem to believe that the interests of the staff are more important than that where they come into conflict with that of the public, the staff should be deemed as more important, which basically undermines the whole reason public companies are set up in the first place.

i believe we are all important to the functioning of society and the country.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

A quick question for those on the side of the BE Unions. How do you propose that this impasse be solved seeing as the company is four months from insolvency?

Remember, the state cannot give aid to the company as that is illegal. Remember also that the terms of employment of the staff far exceed those of similar private operators.

I'd love to hear some solutions from those that say cuts and redundancies are not the answer.

i have all ready said either in this thread or another that the loss making expressway routes need to be cut or dropped and the management look for new markets to operate. that is what management should have been doing, seeking new opportunities. that way redundantsies wouldn't even be an issue, as there would be work for drivers.
all i can do now is hope everyone sits back around the table and a solution is found. only the staff and management can decide how this proceeds, not me you or anyone else.

Grandeeod

end of the road wrote: »

you got an answer to this question in the original thread where it was discussed. i believe it was the luas thread.

No I didn't and this a bus specific thread. Answer the question please. Quote an example of a strike in the private bus sector in Ireland.

oppenheimer1

end of the road wrote: »

you got an answer to this question in the original thread where it was discussed. i believe it was the luas thread.

i believe we are all important to the functioning of society and the country.

i have all ready said either in this thread or another that the loss making expressway routes need to be cut or dropped and the management look for new markets to operate. that is what management should have been doing, seeking new opportunities. that way redundantsies wouldn't even be an issue, as there would be work for drivers.
all i can do now is hope everyone sits back around the table and a solution is found. only the staff and management can decide how this proceeds, not me you or anyone else.

I don't get it. You're saying cut expressway routes, yet the will be enough work for drivers that currently drive 5.5 hours of the 9 that they're paid per day? You also mention new markets, but what new market can BE realistically get into?

Even if BE could find this El Dorado of a new market, it's not going to save them from the solvency crisis that's going to hit in May. The savings need to be big and immediate, new markets don't offer that in the near term.

[Deleted User]

end of the road wrote: »

only the staff and management can decide how this proceeds, not me you or anyone else.

But the unions are trying to drag you, me and everyone else into it by requesting the Transport Minister gets involved and open the State Chequebook. Sensibly, he is keeping well out of it.

It's no coincidence this Government put Ross in Transport.

ThisRegard

salonfire wrote: »

It's no coincidence this Government put Ross in Transport.

Problem is he's no longer the bombastic opposition TD who's vocal when it comes to all things public sector. Real politicking has muted him and he's been pretty poor in the portfolio so far. He may surprise me yet but I wouldn't hold out hope.

end of the road

salonfire wrote: »

It's no coincidence this Government put Ross in Transport.

Well considering the ministers before him also stayed out of disputes, i would suggest ross's employment as transport minister isn't anything to do with not getting involved in disputes.

devnull

i believe we are all important to the functioning of society and the country.

But you believe that some people are more important than others.

As usual with you it's always rhetoric with very little substance.

i have all ready said either in this thread or another that the loss making expressway routes need to be cut or dropped and the management look for new markets to operate. that is what management should have been doing, seeking new opportunities. that way redundantsies wouldn't even be an issue, as there would be work for drivers.

Of course management are not innocent in all of this, but at the same time they are not to blame for all of this either. I don't think anyone believes that the unions are solely to blame, but at the same time the view by the NBRU and SIPTU that it's everyone elses fault and they won't take any share is not going to work.

What's happening now is basically a company is in bad trouble and needs to cut costs and the staff are saying that they are not going to take any cuts whatsoever. The even more laughable thing is today there was reference they were looking for a pay rise and compensation for lost earnings in the last week or two. Only in Ireland when a company is in risk of insolvency would people look for more money!

For what it's worth the plans I have seen so far from Bus Eireann are very sensible, they will scale back management, clerical grades, inspector grades, marketing, scale back investment in vehicles to around 10 a year for Expressway,, they are not just hitting the drivers, they are taking an axe across the company to make the business sustainable.

The trouble is the union are more interested in ensuring their members can extract as much money as possible for as little work as possible and to keep structures and processes in place which can maxmise the amount of non core payroll earnings even if these costs are not sustainable for the company itself.

all i can do now is hope everyone sits back around the table and a solution is found. only the staff and management can decide how this proceeds, not me you or anyone else.

Very unlikely since the union say they are not going to take any cuts to anything which basically means they feel there is nothing wrong with the way the company is running and everything should carry on as it is as far as they are concerned.

TheQuietFella

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

A quick question for those on the side of the BE Unions. How do you propose that this impasse be solved seeing as the company is four months from insolvency?

Remember, the state cannot give aid to the company as that is illegal.
Remember also that the terms of employment of the staff far exceed those of similar private operators.

I'd love to hear some solutions from those that say cuts and redundancies are not the answer.

What then would you call what they gave to Apple?
I'm sure there will be redundancies going forward. Companies that size tend to
be overloaded and of course changes to work practices. Routes also will probably
get hit but changes have to happen if they want it to survive!

devnull

TheQuietFella wrote: »

What then would you call what they gave to Apple?

This isn't a politics forum but I'll bite. The benefits are obvious in Ireland, we have at the last time of checking the fastest-growing economy in Europe driven by the exports of about 1,000 multinationals that employ a large amount of the workforce and generate nearly a quarter of our economic output.

The government realised that multi-national companies provide a huge amount of jobs to this country, because whether you like it or not, as a small country we need such companies here to provide jobs to our students and to help grow our economy stop the situation that happened in the 80s and 90s where people could not find jobs here so emigrated to the UK or other places because they simply felt they could not find work here.

If the government did not appeal the ruling about this it would result to a lot of the companies who have similar arrangements possibly pulling out which would cost tens of thousands if not more jobs in this country which would make a massive spike in unemployment which could be beyond even what was seen during the last recession. This would cause the tax base to collapse and would no doubt put the country into another recession as it would cause the economy to collapse.

I can't say I really like the fact companies use Ireland to set up here to avoid paying tax or paying very little tax. However at the end of the day I realise that the reason the government is allowing them to do so is that without such companies opening up headquarters and offices here, we would have mass unemployment and families would have no choice in some sectors but to emigrate or find it very hard to find jobs in this country and possibly have to sign on the dole.

I'm not easy with it at all, but all I will say is look at past unemployment issues before the multi-nationals came and the levels of people leaving these shores for the UK and other countries to find work then versus what we have now where many more young professionals who graduate are able to find jobs in their own country in the sectors they wish to work in.

oppenheimer1

TheQuietFella wrote: »

What then would you call what they gave to Apple?
I'm sure there will be redundancies going forward. Companies that size tend to
be overloaded and of course changes to work practices. Routes also will probably
get hit but changes have to happen if they want it to survive!

What about Apple? The commission contend that Ireland interfered in the market by giving Apple a tax break that amounted to illegal state aid. If Ireland gives BE state aid, directly or indirectly them any one of the private operators or the Commission could take Ireland to the European court and they would win too.

Whataboutery :rolleyes:

n97 mini

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

A quick question for those on the side of the BE Unions. How do you propose that this impasse be solved seeing as the company is four months from insolvency?

Remember, the state cannot give aid to the company as that is illegal. Remember also that the terms of employment of the staff far exceed those of similar private operators.

I'd love to hear some solutions from those that say cuts and redundancies are not the answer.

What way do these things always end? The taxpayer. If I were a betting man I'd say the govt will get a derogation on the rules that prevents subsidies.

devnull

n97 mini wrote: »

What way do these things always end? The taxpayer. If I were a betting man I'd say the govt will get a derogation on the rules that prevents subsidies.

Which would then no doubt lead to private operators then mounting a legal challenge.

The trouble is if they do get bailed out, essentially it will mean that the unions will have successfully managed to put their interests before that of the public at large both financially and when it comes to public transport services whilst at the same time the unions will still be pointing figures at those evil private companies who they will claim will never improve services because they don't care about the public and the unions do.

There will be no longer any incentive for innovation in the marketplace or for companies to start ground-breaking new services because they will know that the state funded competitor will have have the ability to use taxpayer money to take them out by whatever means necessary, even if they did not have any interest in the routes at all before the privates started them. Therefore companies will simply not bother to innovate.

Past history has shown that BE rarely innovate when left to their own devices without any viable competition, so services will be at a standstill, just like they were 10 years with no development or incentive to improve them. A dominant operator with grossly inefficient working practices backed up with what now would be illegal state aid would then lead to much higher fares and the public will lose out.

But as long as John can work 9.5 hours a day, claiming 1.5 hours in overtime for driving a bus for little more than 50% of the time he is being paid for, earning over 60k a year, working no weekends or anti-social hours, whilst his junior colleagues have to take all the crappy shifts, have little prospect of overtime or the gravy train rotas that the more senior drivers have got, who cared

n97 mini

Bus Eireann managed to block competition on school bus routes.
ESB managed to block transfer of the network to Eirgrid.

Wake up man, this is Ireland!

devnull

n97 mini wrote: »

Bus Eireann managed to block competition on school bus routes.
ESB managed to block transfer of the network to Eirgrid.

Wake up man, this is Ireland!

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it did happen, I really hope it does not but when push has come to shove over the years normally people have caved in, this is what happened in the past when big disputes between the government and unions and the company and unions have played out and Seamus Brennan certainly knows a thing or two about what happens when you dare to face down the unions and put the public first.

I still believe they are hoping for an election before this comes to a close, knowing FF's record in government last time around and their nature of writing blank cheques to sort out every single problem in the country and to kick it further down the road to avoid solving the underlying problems because it creates short to medium term positive headlines that they are sorting the countries problems out, however as we have seen time and time again, this only works for so long then after a while the whole thing explodes in their face and a much worse crisis is revealed.

It's what frustrates me about this country. I mean I love living here but we really are terrible about sorting our problems out. The health service is another perfect example, despite all the time that has passed in the last 20 years or so, is it any different now to what it was then? It just feels that the same problems are going on over and over again and nobody really has the balls to deal with it properly.

Yourself isit

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

What about Apple? The commission contend that Ireland interfered in the market by giving Apple a tax break that amounted to illegal state aid. If Ireland gives BE state aid, directly or indirectly them any one of the private operators or the Commission could take Ireland to the European court and they would win too.

Whataboutery :rolleyes:

I doubt that is true for state owned companies. Else how could any state owned company survive in Europe?

Jimmy Garlic

n97 mini wrote: »

Bus Eireann managed to block competition on school bus routes.

There are private operators on school routes. BE just haven't given up the routes that they service. Not a whole lot of money in it anyway so I doubt private operators are salivating thinking about BEs school routes.

Bass Reeves

Yourself isit wrote: »

I doubt that is true for state owned companies. Else how could any state owned company survive in Europe?

Because you don't have people in sections of society working in ordinary jobs getting middle class wages. In most of Europe they understand that a bus driver cannot earn 60k/ year for driving a bus on what in european term is a short haul drive. On one hand we have union environmentalist on about public transport but ingnoring it cost versus the taxpayer capibility to fund such services. If we want to develop a public transport system we have to accept that workers in such a system cannot be paid above market rates. We cannot have people earning 50k+ and skiving off or hogging buses to achieve a higher than normal living standard.

Idbatterim

The biggest laugh Of all is the world class wages on third world infrastructure!

[Deleted User]

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

What about Apple? The commission contend that Ireland interfered in the market by giving Apple a tax break that amounted to illegal state aid. If Ireland gives BE state aid, directly or indirectly them any one of the private operators or the Commission could take Ireland to the European court and they would win too.

Whataboutery :rolleyes:

Transport services are classified as a service of general economic interest and therefore BE are not subject to the same state aid rules as Apple. Its the same reason that the courier companies couldn't object to the state aid that was given to An Post. Furthermore some of the state aid that is given to BE was established before we joined the EU and is grandfathered in

dublinman1990

If O'Leary's claim that Bus Eireann going insolvent in May is to be believed to be correct; Does he not get the idea that BE still have a legal obligation to run the PSO contracts from the NTA up until the private companies will eventually take over them?

Although I'm thinking his claim could throw up even more stark possibilities for all Bus Eireann services if it did become true.

It could possibly take a very long time for the NTA to approve tenders for private operators to take over the Bus Eireann Expressway routes & for their other routes if the whole company is going to become bust. I have a feeling that the tendering process for the bus routes is going to become a much bigger problem for the NTA & BE to get through & resolve because it won't be at the level of 10% for both Bus Eireann & Dublin Bus. The public bus tendering contract will have to include to tender every Bus Eireann route available & only 10% of routes from Dublin Bus to go to the private operators. If the NTA had still agreed, by way of a guarantee, to pay the private operators a public subsidy to operate the tendered Bus Eireann routes as well as the ex Dublin Bus routes; well both the NTA & the government could be faced with the problem of paying more money into a much higher PSO transport subsidy than anticipated.

I hope for everybody's sake this type of situation does not happen because I don't think the taxpayers will be happy with that problem. The government paying money will be faced to resolve other issues like the possible subsidy issues within IE, by trying to resolve the problems in the HSE with relieving their chronic waiting list crisis & to resolve the housing crisis. What I am saying is that the government is now being seen as the shining light to saving Bus Eireann but they have other challenges in their reach that have to be prioritized first.

I am not happy in when I type this because the type of situation facing Bus Eireann could hit the country's economic progress for a very long time if it did happen.

People will say here on boards that Bus Eireann should go the wall if that suits them. But there are implications in allowing that to happen with a short amount of notice for their own customers. The trouble it will cause cannot be resolved as a quick fix for everybody that uses the service especially in rural Ireland if people have to rely on Bus Eireann if it was their only mode of public transport available to get them to or from work or college during the rush hour. People here sometimes won't think of the wider consequences when an entire company goes to the wall they will be a loss of service which will happen very quickly.

In a time like this; Bus Eireann's management were trying to address the problems in their plans to see if they become successful & if they help the company to make it solvent again the plan will be a success for them which is good under their very grave circumstances. But how long that will last remains to be seen; they have the gregarious issues with the unions with increasing drivers core pay. To be fair; I don't know how long they will last with this issue if it remains to be resolved at all.

I'm just saying here that Bus Eireann should become a success with the new plan if it is done right. If it doesn't; for everybody's sake I don't want them to suffer with a bad exit to their establishment as a bus company.

Going Forward

It'll be interesting to watch the private companies scramble for the crumbs if this all comes to pass.

It'll be dog eat dog, lowest bidder ending up with a mix of initial go getters landed with trojan horse 5 year contracts effectively bidding against themselves in the next round to keep "competitive" whist regulatory standards increase for ever decreasing returns.

All the while the desk jockeys in BE and the NTA will oversee the maelstrom from pensioned positions.

Transdev bus operations will be wiping the floor with local outfits in a few years.

And that's progress.

There are at least three apparently stalled national transport tenders that neither the NTA or HSE between them cannot even manage to properly put out to tender having been stuck for over a year with no progress about route details being invited to tender for.

The only successful tender operation on the surface is the school transport tender which is operated on a strict take it or leave it basis on price but with BE's "administration costs" swallowing up any savings the tendering process is supposed to be delivering.

gbob

devnull wrote: »

But as long as John can work 9.5 hours a day, claiming 1.5 hours in overtime for driving a bus for little more than 50% of the time he is being paid for, earning over 60k a year, working no weekends or anti-social hours, whilst his junior colleagues have to take all the crappy shifts, have little prospect of overtime or the gravy train rotas that the more senior drivers have got, who cared

Tired of listening to claims of excessive pay for doing next to no work..

I'm a senior driver at BE, my daily driving time is 8 hours for which I get paid 8hrs 40mins. I work extremely unsociable hours and every Saturday for which I receive zero additional compensation. My salary is 39k inclusive.

I, like most of the rest of this country have been subjected to the increasing cost of living and reduced income over the last several years and I can't afford another attack on my income.

I won't pretend to have the answers to solve this crisis, but I will say this crisis is in my opinion manufactured in order to introduce to "low cost model".

Many of the routes that BE provide are incorrectly described as express when they are in fact glorified PSO services which should be reclassified and funded accordingly.

BE should however, completely abandon the express market and concentrate purely on the PSO routes which was the very reason for their creation.

BE is poorly managed, underfunded, wasteful, top heavy, and definitely needs streamlining, but not at my expense.

Wanderer78

gbob wrote:

BE should however, completely abandon the express market and concentrate purely on the PSO routes which was the very reason for their creation.

I'd rather not see this, we truly are in a race to the bottom, not just in this industry but in many others. This worries me greatly, as it seems like nobody really knows what to do about it. Best of luck

Brendan Bendar

gbob wrote: »

Tired of listening to claims of excessive pay for doing next to no work..

I'm a senior driver at BE, my daily driving time is 8 hours for which I get paid 8hrs 40mins. I work extremely unsociable hours and every Saturday for which I receive zero additional compensation. My salary is 39k inclusive.

I, like most of the rest of this country have been subjected to the increasing cost of living and reduced income over the last several years and I can't afford another attack on my income.

I won't pretend to have the answers to solve this crisis, but I will say this crisis is in my opinion manufactured in order to introduce to "low cost model".

Many of the routes that BE provide are incorrectly described as express when they are in fact glorified PSO services which should be reclassified and funded accordingly.

BE should however, completely abandon the express market and concentrate purely on the PSO routes which was the very reason for their creation.

BE is poorly managed, underfunded, wasteful, top heavy, and definitely needs streamlining, but not at my expense.

There's the problem, same as the HSE.

Working class heroes

gbob wrote: »

Tired of listening to claims of excessive pay for doing next to no work..

I'm a senior driver at BE, my daily driving time is 8 hours for which I get paid 8hrs 40mins. I work extremely unsociable hours and every Saturday for which I receive zero additional compensation. My salary is 39k inclusive.

I, like most of the rest of this country have been subjected to the increasing cost of living and reduced income over the last several years and I can't afford another attack on my income.

I won't pretend to have the answers to solve this crisis, but I will say this crisis is in my opinion manufactured in order to introduce to "low cost model".

Many of the routes that BE provide are incorrectly described as express when they are in fact glorified PSO services which should be reclassified and funded accordingly.

BE should however, completely abandon the express market and concentrate purely on the PSO routes which was the very reason for their creation.

BE is poorly managed, underfunded, wasteful, top heavy, and definitely needs streamlining, but not at my expense.

You had me onside there until I read the last five words.

Wanderer78

gbob wrote:

BE is poorly managed, underfunded, wasteful, top heavy, and definitely needs streamlining, but not at my expense.

'Streamlining', just another bs term from the globalisation cook book. We really have to stop with this nonsense

Brendan Bendar

Wanderer78 wrote: »

'Streamlining', just another bs term from the globalisation cook book. We really have to stop with this nonsense

This is a person working for BE.

The real nonsense of course is that BE costs are way out of shape and the taxpayer is expected to grin and bear it, to keep the Unions and staff 'on side'