We will now take Leaders' Questions. I appeal to everyone to have regard to the allocated times, please.

We are now into the sixth day without Bus Éireann services throughout the country. People are angry about the loss of services. The workers are very angry about the race to the bottom to a low wage and low cost public transport model with a draconian reduction in their overall take-home income. People in the regions have no access to public transport. Towns that are already in deep trouble are dying on their feet, so to speak, without this connectivity. Students are having huge issues in getting to universities, institutes of technology and various colleges. There are sick people who are having great difficulty in making their hospital appointments. Notwithstanding that, we still have inertia and paralysis in the reaction of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, and of the Government to this. There are 110,000 regular passengers who are being discommoded, and 2,500 workers who are in a very deeply anxious and worrying state.

I put it if this was Dublin Bus or if it was affecting the capital city, the issue would have been resolved much earlier. It is interesting that the Luas dispute was resolved, the Dublin Bus dispute was resolved and the Garda pay issue was resolved. The Minister was involved in that and it broke the Lansdowne Road agreement. However, this situation cannot get resolved. Not only is it not getting resolved, no attempt is being made, not even behind the scenes, to try to sort this out. One senses a hidden agenda that is determined to undermine the very concept of a public transport company. I have a real, deep sense of that. It is a view that accords with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's own personal ideology and philosophy. It is something I reject and do not support it in any shape of or form because we need a public transport company. That is a policy position.

It is important to point out that there were options in advance of this dispute taking place. We pointed out the room for manoeuvre regarding the free travel issue and whether Bus Éireann was getting enough funds for that. We have made the point about the public service obligation. The Minister also has the additional facility of cross-subsidisation from reasonable profit, which the EU obliges and facilitates the companies to engage in. Dublin Bus did extraordinarily well out of that facility last year. Bus Éireann got about €400,000 from that. The point is that policy-wise there were opportunities to create the conditions to facilitate a resolution of the situation. There was precedent in 2013 when the then Government facilitated intervention of two facilitators to enable actions to be taken to get it back into the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. This idea that we will not get involved at all does not hold water in respect of precedents. I put it to the Minister that the inertia is not good enough and people are being discommoded unreasonably.

Deputy Martin is absolutely correct that previous cases of transport disputes such as those at Dublin Bus and Irish Rail have been resolved. They were resolved in the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and in the Labour Court. It was Government policy to support part of our State that had a proven track record of dealing with industrial relations issues. That approach was used in relation to previous disputes and industrial activity within the CIE group. Since it played a positive and valuable role then, that is why it is essential that the same approach be used now. Let us bear in mind the track record of the organisation the Government is supporting and which is an agency of the State. This organisation has, over the recent period, been involved in 1,400 cases of industrial activity or dispute. The WRC has played a successful role in 85% of those instances. The Deputy is right to say there have been industrial relations difficulties in the CIE group. What is missing in his analysis is the very forum and mechanism that played a role in bringing those disputes to an end, which was the Workplace Relations Commission. This is why the Government is standing behind the WRC and the Labour Court and the only forums in which this can be done again.

On the Deputy's allegations about Bus Éireann, I as the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the entire Government support the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, in this and are absolutely committed to the concept and role of public transport and are absolutely committed to the viability of Bus Éireann. This is the very reason €263 million was made available in 2017 to support public bus and rail transport in the State. It is the very reason why over the past two years we have seen an increase in excess of 10% in the support put in by the taxpayer to the CIE group to support public transport and the sustainability of Bus Éireann which we know plays a vital role in allowing communities outside of Dublin to have access to their places of work and study.

It is because the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission have played a leading role in dealing with industrial relations difficulties in the CIE group that they are the only forums within which this issue can now be dealt with.

The Minister is being disingenuous. The point I am making is that in 2013, when all of that broke down, the Government at the time took the decision to appoint two experienced facilitators to get people back into facilitation. Nothing has happened on this occasion by the Government and nothing has happened for all of 2015 and right through to 2016 because it is not in the Minister's own backyard.

The proof of the pudding, Taoiseach, sorry, Minister-----

He is delighted.

The proof of the pudding is in an e-mail that was sent to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, on 23 December 2015, when he was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, by Graham Doyle, alerting him to the fact that the unions were very concerned about possible measures in Bus Éireann. The Minister's official said, "However, we do not detect any immediate action on that front. They are likely to take a hard line, judging from comments being made. A lot of blame is being attributed to the NTA issuing licences to other operators." What was the Minister's response? He said, "We will have to get together in early January to refine how we all handle this. It will obviously heat up going into the elections." The Minister cynically did absolutely nothing-----

Show him the report.

-----because of the general election and the onset of it. Many problems were sown as a result of that. That complete stand-off has caused the current crisis in Bus Éireann. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, has said that he is not getting involved in any circumstances and is not even going to appoint facilitators.

I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

This is not just a pay dispute. It is not just an industrial relations dispute. It is a fundamental issue about structural change to Bus Éireann.

Thank you, Deputy.

That is why it needs different inputs in addition to the industrial relations input and the Minister has been severely lacking in addressing this particular issue.

I hope that, at some point in Deputy Martin's analysis, he will point to the fact that I was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport who began the process of increasing investment in the CIE group after many years of that not being possible.

Deputy Donohoe might be Taoiseach.

He sat on the report.

I was the Minister who played a role in the bus fleet being renewed for Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus.

What about all the workers?

The reason all of that happened is precisely because of the recognition that I and the then Government had in respect of the role of Bus Éireann and the CIE group.

What did the Deputy do with that report?

That was the case then and it is the case now. In all of the other issues to which Deputy Martin referred in respect of industrial relations difficulties, I, as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and my predecessor were determined to make sure we could have as efficient a public transport service as possible and a CIE group that is sustainable. That was the action the Government took then-----

There was inaction for 12 months.

They buried it.

As I have said, the very industrial relations mechanisms that played a role in resolving those issues must be allowed to do their work now.