The shameful human consequences of the Government's failure in the area of housing are personified in Sam's tragic plight and are well known. I also want to highlight another fairly shameful failure on the part of the Government in not providing a key public service to citizens. I refer to what is happening in the context of public transport and bus services. Anybody who uses buses in this city, particularly at peak times, will know how frequently buses do not arrive or arrive late. In the latter instance, when they do arrive, there are such lengthy queues that people cannot get on. Earlier this week, the National Transport Authority, NTA, produced a performance report on Go-Ahead, the privatised bus service. The privatisation of bus services is the policy the Government has pursued and implemented. It has handed out 10% of routes in this city to a private, for-profit operator and the report shows what the consequences have been. Since it took over 24 routes in 2018, Go-Ahead has consistently failed to meet its performance targets. It got away without being fined for the first few months but now fines are being imposed. On route after route, and overall in terms of its performance, the company is failing to meet the performance targets set for it by the NTA. It is discommoding young people getting to school, workers, people with disabilities and all sorts of other individuals who rely on public transport.

When the Government proposed the privatisation and outsourcing of routes, it stated that this would be cheaper and that the competition would produce better performance. Neither of those things has turned out to be the case. Go-Ahead's tender price - €171 million - was higher than that of Dublin Bus. It cost us more and its performance is way below that of Dublin Bus. We all know that Dublin Bus services could be a hell of a lot better but it must be stated that the privatisation experiment has failed. The Government should acknowledge this and abandon the privatisation agenda relating to public transport. If we want to do something about the climate, make our city work, deal with congestion and improve air quality,then we need better, cheaper public transport. With the privatisation of routes, the Government is going in precisely the opposite direction to that in which it should be going. Private bus services are not cheaper or better. At no level are they working to provide for the public transport needs of this city or the country. Will the Tánaiste accept that we need to reverse the privatisation experiment and put more money into providing better and cheaper public transport for our citizens?

We are putting a lot more money into public transport projects right across Dublin and the rest of country, whether that is in the form of the BusConnects project, light rail systems or whatever. The Deputy approaches this from an ideological perspective.

And Fine Gael does not.

Privatisation is something he can never accept on any level, on anything, whether it is housing, public transport or public-private partnerships to deliver schools.

Essential services is what they are called.

If there is a private sector element to any project that involves the State, the Deputy sees that as just unsupportable from an ideological point of view. It is a blind spot. What we are doing in public transport is trying to provide the best possible public transport for people. We are looking at certain routes in respect of which competition can lead to the provision of the best possible services.

That is ideology.

If the companies that win those contracts are not performing to the standard set down in the contracts to which they have signed up, there are consequences and so there should be. There are plenty of private bus operators that are doing a really good job. There are also plenty of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann services that are really good. When providers, public or private, are not delivering what they need to deliver, we have to pull them up on it. The issue for the Government is the delivery of the service, not whether it is public or private. That is how we are approaching the delivery of public transport. The vast majority of public transport in Ireland is being provided for and supported by the State. That is the way it should be but there is absolutely nothing wrong with certain routes being opened up to competition. Bus Éireann or Dublin Bus can actually compete for them if they want but if somebody else is providing a different proposition that gives better outcomes for commuters, we should be encouraging that. We should be encouraging private sector investment to deliver those solutions, which is what we are doing. If certain companies are not delivering what they promised in the context of those contracts, there is a consequence to that built into the contract which may result in fines.

Our policy is to have free public transport and better public transport. That is incompatible with private sector investment because private sector investment is about profit. The Government has not put more money into Dublin Bus. In 2008, €85 million in subvention went to Dublin Bus and we had 1,200 buses. Today, there is €41 million going to Dublin Bus and we have 1,115 buses. There is less subvention, fewer buses, more people needing and using those buses, higher fares and poorer performance. Then the Government makes a bad situation worse by privatising it. Since Go-Ahead has come in, it has admitted that its poor performance was related to higher than expected driver resignations. I wonder why that is. Might it have anything to do with the poor conditions and pay of those bus drivers? There have been 4,000 complaints in respect of just 10% of the routes since the beginning of this year against Go-Ahead bus services. By the way, the company also had a very poor performance in the context of service provision in Britain, where the privatisation of public transport has been a disaster. How can we get more people into public transport if it is privatised, for profit, if fares are too high and if performance is as a bad as we are seeing from Go-Ahead?

When the Deputy talks about free public transport, there is no such thing.

There is in Luxembourg, Estonia-----

In those countries there is no such thing as free public transport. The State decides to pay for it or subsidise it if it wants to do it.

Through taxes.

Whether that is through a private sector company that is delivering the service or a public sector company does not make any difference. Free public transport, if we choose to subvent and support it, will be a policy and budgetary choice. It is not free just because we decide to declare it free. Someone has got to pay for it.

People always pay.

Either the consumer pays for it or the State pays for it, whether it is being provided by a private sector company or a public company.

The taxpayer pays.

Deputy Boyd Barrett should not present this as something that it is not. I will come back to what I said before.

Who buys the tyres?

It is the outcomes that matter in the context of a delivery of efficient public transport, whether buses, trains or whatever.

I do not hold a candle for any company that is providing a service here, whether it be State or privately run. We have a regulator to do that job. If people do not meet the standards that have been set for them, there needs to be a consequence. As I have said to the Deputy before, there are many private sector bus companies in the country that are doing a great job, as indeed are Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus on many routes.