THE NATIONAL TRANSPORT Authority (NTA) last year imposed cumulative financial penalties of €17.9 million on transport operators, with Dublin Bus accounting for more than half the total.

According to the NTA Public Service Obligation Contracts Annual Performance Report for 2023 the cumulative €17.9 million was with-held from contractual payments due to public transport companies last year as a result of their failure to meet minimum performance standards.

The €17.4 million is €2 million less than the €19.4 million that was with-held in 2022.

The report states that performance-related payment deductions are made where an operator fails to meet ‘Minimum Performance Standards’ and last year Dublin Bus had €9.09 million deducted – or 52% of the overall total deducted by the NTA.

In the Dublin Bus annual report published earlier this month, chairperson of Dublin Bus, Gary Owens highlighted the negative impact Dublin city traffic has on Dublin Bus operations.

He said: “Traffic congestion continued to pose a substantial operational challenge in 2023, negatively impacting on our service reliability.”

The new NTA report shows that Bus Éireann was hit with a €3.25m financial penalty while Bus Eireann Waterford City was hit with a further €760,000 financial penalty.

The LUAS received a €2.42m financial penalty while Iarnrod Eireann had €1.26m in deductions.

The remaining deductions of €1.1m were made on Go Ahead Ireland for its Outer Dublin Metropolitan Area and Dublin Commuter Outer Metropolitan services.

In her accompanying overview, ceo of the NTA, Anne Graham said that a record number of people used public transport in Ireland in 2023. 

She said: “The strong growth in passenger numbers, along with resource availability and traffic congestion, posed challenges in terms of punctuality and reliability performance across the network, and particularly in our urban areas.”

Graham said that the Authority “acknowledges that this caused disruption and inconvenience to customers. The Authority, in consultation with the operators, worked tirelessly to resolve these issues”.

Under the heading of ‘Performance of Contractors Operators’ in the NTA annual report for 2023 it states that the Authority “met operators at regular intervals during the year to review their performance against the agreed performance standards and to agree remedial actions to address any under-performance”. 

It states that “this may include adding additional capacity to meet additional demand or amending the journey time for routes to address reliability issues caused by increased congestion”.

The NTA’s overall spend last year increased by 18.5 rising from €1.67bn to €1.97bn and the main drivers were Public Service Obligation (PSO) expenditure rising from €809.9m to €982m while capital expenditure increased by 18% from €735m to €870m.

The basic pay for Graham last year increased from €202,000 to €215,000 and that doesn’t include retirement benefits earned in the period.

Graham was the only employee to earn in excess of €200,000 with five others earning between €160,000 and €180,000.

A further 25 earns between €100,000 and €150,000.

In 2023, the NTA employed 261.