de Brún calls for quality all-Ireland railway service

18 January, 2007

Bairbre de Brún MEP

Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has rejected railway liberalisation as proposed in a report being debated on in the European Parliament. Today (18th January) MEPs are going to vote on what is called the 3rd Railway Package, parts of which are positive, but parts of which pose a real threat to rail services and to workers and consumers and “will lead either to less services for consumers or to a greater amount of public money being used
purely to maintain the existing level of services.”

Ms de Brún said:

“The Savary Report on Certification of Train Crews is a pragmatic and positive proposal to improve the certification of train crews which will contribute to railway safety and to the safety of passengers and crew.

“However the Jarzembowski Report on Liberalisation of Rail Passenger Transport proposes ‘open access’ competition for international rail passenger transport from 2010 and, even more worryingly, for national rail passenger transport from 2017.

“There is a crying need for increased public investment in the development of an all-Ireland railway service. In 1922 no less than 20 railway lines crossed the border. Today the only cross-border railway link is from Dublin to Belfast. Reversing this trend requires an all-Ireland strategy and significant public investment.

“Passengers will not benefit from liberalisation of rail passenger services. Allowing open access competition will lead to cherry-picking, leaving network providers to compete with single-route providers on profitable routes. Network providers will either have to provide less services for consumers, or else more public money will have to be used to maintain the
existing level of services, money which should be used to develop good
quality modern railway services.

“Open access competition will jeopardise consumer services regarding timetable information, ticketing and connections. Liberalisation will result in further job losses, a poorer service and a worsening of working conditions in the sector.

“This proposal is ideologically motivated and will reduce the possibility for Ireland to develop a high-quality all-Ireland railway service.

“I recently hosted a high powered Sinn Féin delegation in Brussels to meet with the European Commission about the urgent need for infrastructure development in the region, including rail transport.  I would call on the Irish government and the EU institutions to give serious consideration to the needs of the NW and areas like it and to step back from the path of privatisation proposed in the Jarzembowski report.” ENDS

Note for editors:

Competition based on ‘open access’ allows any railway company to run on a route as it wishes. There are no rules regarding quality of services to be respected. A system of ‘regulated competition’ generally grants exclusive rights to a single company for operating alone on a certain infrastructure after a tendering process. Service quality criteria can be imposed.