![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b9f36950-9704-4a0a-a0c6-3393ac48685d.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A Bus \u00c9ireann hybrid bus<\/p>\n
The National Transport Authority (NTA) last year imposed cumulative financial penalties of \u20ac17m on transport operators here with Bus \u00c9ireann accounting for \u20ac5.5m, or 32pc of the total.<\/p>\n
According to the NTA Public Service Obligation (PSO) Contracts Annual Performance Report for 2024 the cumulative \u20ac17m was withheld from contractual payments due to public transport companies as a result of their failure to meet minimum performance standards. The \u20ac17m is down slightly on the \u20ac17.4m that was withheld in 2023.<\/p>\n
Bus \u00c9ireann sustained the cumulative \u20ac5.5m in performance-related deductions with its Bus \u00c9ireann (Direct Award) contract accounting for \u20ac4.98m of the deductions. Dublin Bus faces \u20ac4.67m in performance-related deductions while Iarnr\u00f3d \u00c9ireann was deducted \u20ac3.38m and Luas deducted \u20ac2.1m.<\/p>\n
In the report, then interim-CEO of the NTA, Hugh Creegan, said: \u201cThough much improved in 2024, reliability and punctuality of PSO bus services \u2013 primarily caused by resource availability and traffic congestion particularly in our urban areas \u2013 continued to cause some issues.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThat said, the NTA in consultation with the operators, worked tirelessly to resolve the issues. Operators made great strides in 2024 recruiting additional drivers with their focus now turning to recruiting additional vehicle mechanics of which there is a significant shortage in the State at present.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 2024 Bus \u00c9ireann annual report, chairperson Miriam Hughes outlined the challenges when seeking to reduce NTA penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe implementation of punctuality improvements proved to be our greatest service quality challenge, hampered by resource constraint for much of the year and the speed at which we could hire and train new drivers and mechanics throughout the year,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile our recruitment drives for mechanics and drivers did deliver, it took time and came towards the end of the year when it was difficult to implement the changes faster to match our operating environment, that would help us to avoid deductions under our contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Bus \u00c9ireann CEO Stephen Kent also addressed the NTA penalties in the 2024 annual report when he said the significant penalties effectively offset the reasonable profit Bus \u00c9ireann could make on the Direct Award Contract.<\/p>\n
Mr Kent was succeeded in the post by Jean O\u2019Sullivan on November 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bus \u00c9ireann hybrid bus The National Transport Authority (NTA) last year imposed cumulative financial penalties of \u20ac17m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,11802,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-219453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dublin-bus","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115675838799898642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}