OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard)
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Committee for Infrastructure OFFICIAL REPORT (Hansard) Commercial Bus Service Permits and Transport Integration: Bus and Coach NI; Hannon Coach; Rooney International Coach Hire 2 June 2021 NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY Committee for Infrastructure Commercial Bus Service Permits and Transport Integration: Bus and Coach NI; Hannon Coach; Rooney International Coach Hire 2 June 2021 Members present for all or part of the proceedings: Miss Michelle McIlveen (Chairperson) Ms Martina Anderson Mr Roy Beggs Mr Cathal Boylan Mr Keith Buchanan Mrs Dolores Kelly Ms Liz Kimmins Mr Andrew Muir Witnesses: Mrs Karen Magill Bus and Coach NI Mr Niall McKeever Bus and Coach NI Mr Owen McLaughlin Hannon Coach Mr Eamonn Rooney Rooney International Coach Hire The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I welcome, via StarLeaf, Karen Magill, chief executive of Bus and Coach NI Ltd; Niall McKeever, chairman of Bus and Coach NI Ltd; Eamonn Rooney, owner of Rooney International Coach Hire; and Owen McLaughlin, group marketing manager for Hannon Coach. Thank you for attending the Committee this morning. The meeting will be recorded by Hansard. I invite you to make your opening statement and to defer to your colleagues when necessary. Mrs Karen Magill (Bus and Coach NI): OK. Good morning, and thank you very much once again for the opportunity. I will try to keep things simple and short this morning because I am accompanied by three operators, two of whom have been operating bus permits for 20 years now. Owen McLaughlin, from Hannon Coach, has been submitting applications for permits for the last four years. In simple terms, in Northern Ireland we have a public transport provider that operates about 1,500 socially necessary services for the network. That is how things have been done and how we do things in Northern Ireland, and it is [Inaudible.] It is obvious that there are gaps in the network and opportunities throughout the Province for other operators outside that, in that the private sector sees opportunities in local areas to run a service. Where that happens, there has been a process that, over the last number of years, has been neither adequate nor fair. In the work that we did 10 or 12 years ago on the Transport Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, part of the changes to the Act and the updated [Inaudible] through a formal process the private sector to come into the network in order to complement what already exists in the public transport provider. Other changes were made to the 2011 Act that allowed the new, stand-alone Department to look at those permits and to fairly manage the process. Some of that has not been enacted, and, at the moment, the Department considers the 1 applications. The premise is to allow the private sector to fill in gaps and to complement the network as it sits. Unfortunately, the process has always been awkward, and, at times, it has been obstructive. Regardless of what we did to change the 2011 Act, operators have always had to battle to be able to run their services. In the last couple of years, that seems to have become even more difficult and more concentrated. As you know, we have written to you with our thoughts on the latest new draft guidance. We have a list of issues on that guidance that we have presented to you. The first is that, during a meeting with departmental officials, we learned that Minister Mallon had agreed a new process. We were not consulted on it, nor were we party to that new process. It is a done deal. The new draft guidance reflects that new process. The process allows for so much change in the application procedure and in the timescales. We are going from an eight-week process to one that is 32 weeks and beyond. The proof of demand has become more onerous, and there is no definitive list of demand requirements. Permanent renewals are being treated as new applications. The determination process has become more difficult. A decision for a new service can go as high as the Minister. There have been omissions of mention of the journey planner. The document is supposed to detail all the types of service you can apply for. The 30-minute rule is a massive change in the whole determination. There are a lot of issues for us in the guidance, and that is why we wrote to the Committee. The new guidance has left us in a position where we do not believe we are welcome in the public transport network. We do not understand why the Department has changed the process in this last couple of years. It has changed where things are for us. We do not feel welcome or that the opportunities are there. We are being kept out of them, and the framework contradicts the opportunity for the private sector to help integrate. We are an asset that can be used in public transport and part of developing a network of new flexible services for the public in Northern Ireland. With me are three operators who have all been part of that process and have experienced difficulties along the way. If it is OK, I would like to ask Mr Niall McKeever from Airporter to join us, and then we will ask Eamonn and Owen for their input. Mr Niall McKeever (Bus and Coach NI): I will start by formally acknowledging the importance of the Committee engagements with our industry. Fundamentally, it is essential that our industry guidelines reflect the ambitions of our Government's aspirations and create an environment where they can happen. That is why it is vital for the issues raised in our report to be understood in the context of where we are now, have been and want to go. I highlight the correlation between the newly defined transport sector and the opportunities it presents for the future. Primarily, I want to share a personal view of being a permit holder and of the challenges that are imposed by the new guidelines. Airporter is a multi-award-winning coach operation connecting Derry to the two Belfast airports. I have been owner/director of the operation for nearly 25 years, so you would think that I was safe in the knowledge that Airporter was fully integrated into the public transport network for Northern Ireland, but you would be surprised. We have won countless industry operation awards, from innovation to customer service, and we were the first bus company in Ireland to provide online real-time reservations. Airporter created a new direct access route that was not there before, and it has grown that business from zero to 150,000 passengers per year. We are very much part of the connectivity infrastructure of the north-west and have carried over 2 million passengers since 1997. We have a fleet of 16 vehicles, employ over 30 people and travel over 2 million kilometres per year. In that time, we have never fallen foul of any operating legislation and have a very well respected name in the industry. In any other business sector, that level of operational excellence and compliance would be celebrated and encouraged — [Inaudible owing to poor sound quality.] The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): The sound has disappeared. We will see whether Niall can reconnect. Karen, we have lost Niall. Is Owen in a position at this stage to make his contribution, and we can come back to Niall when he reconnects? Mr Owen McLaughlin (Hannon Coach): Good morning. Thank you for having us today. I will give a brief background to Hannon Transport Ltd. We are a specialist chilled transport logistics company based in Aghalee, just outside Lurgan. We specialise in the fresh produce sector, and we have offices and transport in Rotterdam, Paris and Dublin. We employ over 400 people. 2 We are here today because, in 2017, we made an application to run an express service between Londonderry and Belfast, as well as five applications for other destinations across Northern Ireland. I will give you brief background to that to give you a flavour of how the Department has progressively frustrated, obstructed and ultimately blocked our attempts to enter the market despite our applications being in line with all the policy, legislation and regulations etc. For the sake of brevity, it is impossible to go into all the details, but I am happy to expand on any details that the Committee wants more detail on or to follow up with evidence on any of what we say today. I have broken the process down into the five phases that we went through. The application process is supposed to be straightforward and to take eight weeks. It has been common practice and is implicit in the Department's guidelines that, if a similar service is not operating on the same route, an operator should automatically be awarded the permit. We put permit applications in for six routes. Our first application was put in in May 2017. In July 2017, the Department turned us down and refused our application for a Londonderry to Belfast route. It subsequently ignored all five of our other applications. We were forced into a judicial review (JR). At that stage, the Department failed to respond to a series of freedom of information requests, and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) eventually issued a decision notice on those for July 2020. As I said, we were forced into a judicial review. The papers for the judicial review were put in in October 2017, and it was settled by the Department in February 2018. At that stage, on 15 February, the Department committed to a period of six weeks in which to make fresh redeterminations, bringing us up to the end of March 2018.