Re: Campaign against 10% privatisation of Dublin Bus/Bus Eireann routes.

Members’ will be aware that this Trade Union has embarked upon a vigorous and robust campaign against the Fine Gael/Labour Government privatisation policy.

We have attended at a number of public meetings in all the areas being targeted by the Fine Gael/Labour Government.

The reaction from the public has been phenomenal in terms of numbers, particularly in Waterford, Edenderry and Clane. People are appalled at the thought of their Bus Services being undermined in this way.

One of the strongest messages which emanated from these meetings was the fact that people could not comprehend how ordinary Citizens (both workers and travelling public) have been let down by their so called representatives in Government.

We fielded quite a number of questions with regard to the response from the broader Trade Union movement in relation to their support of us in the campaign of opposition.

We outlined from our perspective that in general the broader Trade Union movement may not be in a position to publicly question or even attack the policy being adopted by their direct representatives in Government, particularly this close to an election.

We even explained that some of these people were actually defending the 10% on the basis that it could have been worse had Labour not been in Government, as if the battle to save our public transport services only commenced after this Government took office.

Fact: The following is directly from the jointly agreed programme for Government:

“We recognise the need to rebalance the transport policy in favour of Public Transport. We will therefore establish a Cabinet Sub-Committee on infrastructure to explore the benefits of a more diverse bus service provision”.

Translation:  diverse is “showing a great deal of variety; very different”. Google Translation

One thing is for sure, variety and very different is a private bus replacing our buses.

However it is our strong conviction that all Transport Workers regardless of Trade Union affiliation are supportive of the campaign to oppose the privatisation policy being pursued by the Fine Gael/Labour Government.

We are now calling on all those Transport Workers to join with us in continuing the campaign against this Fine Gael?Lobour policy of attacking bus workers and the travelling public.

Dermot O’Leary                                                                                                               General Secretary                                                                                                                         22^nd May 2014

Stop Privatisation

Public Transport

public Amenity or Commercial Interest?

Ideology V Public interest