CIE demands 9% price hike

[Sidewinder]

Does anyone think FT is mixing up privatising Dublin Bus with opening up bus routes to competition?

Not at all. He carefully considers his posts. I'm sure he'll explain it to us any minute now.

*drums fingers*

Sometimes you have to wonder if unqualified Universal Suffrage was really such a good idea....

[Rocky]

I'm lost as to why CIE feel they have to raise prices by 9% when fuel prices are down by 10%. Also inflation is at 3.9% so this is well above inflation. This type of thing is why Ireland is the most expensive country in the euro zone and unless the government do something to stop this ridiculous increase in semi-state company’s prices, the problem will just get worst.

Also Dublin Bus should not be privatized. However the market should be opened up to competition.

[Sidewinder]

Also Dublin Bus should not be privatized. However the market should be opened up to competition.

Why?

Forget the PD mantra always yelling about "competition" for one moment. Pause, take a deep breath, take a step back and consider this rationally.

You open routes to "competition". Only profitable routes will be attractive to private operators, so these are the only routes they'll bid for.

And if they get them? Well, then Dublin Bus loses some/all of its money-making routes but still has to run all the other loss-making routes. Hence the scale of the subsidy to Dublin Bus must increase significantly.

End result? Private companies cherry-picking the profitable routes and only running services at times they can make a profit, making out like bandits at the cost of quality and frequency of bus services; while the taxpayer has to fork out tens of millions to the now massively loss-making Dublin Bus.

It's Corporate Welfare, not "competition". Open your eyes. The PDs are all about Corporate Welfare, not real competition. If they had the slightest interest in real competition they would have tried to do something in the last 9 years about all the long list of monopolies, cartels, closed shops and restrictive practices throughout the Irish economy that keep prices here artificially high. The reason that they studiously avoid having anything to say about these, is that private companies are trousering billions from such practices (and Government turning a blind eye). Corporate Welfare. End of fecking story. That's all the PDs are about.

Long past time somebody called them on their bull***t.

[Conor]

You open routes to "competition". Only profitable routes will be attractive to private operators, so these are the only routes they'll bid for.

And if they get them? Well, then Dublin Bus loses some/all of its money-making routes but still has to run all the other loss-making routes. Hence the scale of the subsidy to Dublin Bus must increase significantly.

End result? Private companies cherry-picking the profitable routes and only running services at times they can make a profit, making out like bandits at the cost of quality and frequency of bus services; while the taxpayer has to fork out tens of millions to the now massively loss-making Dublin Bus.

It could be done by bundling profitable routes together with unprofitable ones, setting minimum service standards, and putting them out to tender.

[Akrasia]

Irish public transportation is useless. It has fallen victim to the 'profit first' brigade of neoloberal economics, who consistently ignore all so called 'externalities' that don't immediately affect the bottom line.

Public transport should not be run as a purely for profit enterprise.

[Akrasia]

You open routes to "competition". Only profitable routes will be attractive to private operators, so these are the only routes they'll bid for.

And if they get them? Well, then Dublin Bus loses some/all of its money-making routes but still has to run all the other loss-making routes. Hence the scale of the subsidy to Dublin Bus must increase significantly.

End result? Private companies cherry-picking the profitable routes and only running services at times they can make a profit, making out like bandits at the cost of quality and frequency of bus services; while the taxpayer has to fork out tens of millions to the now massively loss-making Dublin Bus.

It could be done by bundling profitable routes together with unprofitable ones, setting minimum service standards, and putting them out to tender.

so how exactly is that 'competition' if licenses are regulated and fixed and if routes are prescribed and non negotiable?
It is one thing to deregulate public transport. It is another thing entirely to privatise it. If the 'private sector' is so much more efficient, then it should be more than capable of driving down prices without the state having to sell off it's fixed assets at a discount price