Translink: Future of transport company ‘in jeopardy’ over funding

Glider bus

Image copyright
Pacemaker

Image caption

The Glider was introduced to Translink’s service in Belfast in 2018

A senior civil servant has issued a stark warning about the future of NI’s public transport network.

In 2015/16, funding provided to Translink by Stormont was cut and its budget has struggled to recover.

John McGrath, from the Department for Infrastructure, told a Stormont committee the viability of Translink is “in jeopardy”.

The department is Translink’s primary source of capital funding, and one of its main sources of revenue income.

‘Running out of options’

In 2015/16, the annual subsidy provided to Translink for the public transport network was reduced by some £13m, in line with a series of wider savings that the then Department for Regional Development had to make.

Mr McGrath said while Translink had managed to maintain the rail and bus network by drawing on its reserves, it is now “running out of options”.

The department’s deputy secretary told MLAs on the Infrastructure committee that if no further investment was provided to Translink, it faced going into 2021 with a deficit of about £28m.

“I doubt there are the savings there to balance the books and yet run the network,” he added.

Image copyright
NI Assembly

Image caption

Mr McGrath suggested that officials might need to look at only running services that are profitable

‘You’d just close down the railway’

Ulster Unionist MLA Roy Beggs asked what options there were for Translink in the short-term, if additional money was not provided.

Mr McGrath said nothing had been agreed, but suggested that officials might need to look at only running services that are profitable.

“If you ended up only running what was profitable you’re talking about bits of Metro, some of the Goldline routes or you could look at – it’s not in a scenario anywhere – but you’d just close down the railway.

“There is no document sitting somewhere with that, but because of the scale of this there isn’t a ‘tighten your belt and it’ll be alright’ [approach].

“The scale of it means, in our view, the continued viability of the public transport network is in jeopardy.”

The civil servant said if Translink’s funding problems got to that level, any cuts would need to be agreed by the infrastructure minister, Nichola Mallon.

“But it won’t be things at the margins, you’re talking about hacking at the bone,” he told MLAs.

“We’ve kicked the can down the road because with in-year additions we’ve bought another year but we don’t have that anymore – this is a serious issue.”

Mr McGrath also told the committee the department estimated that it needs about £800m in the next financial year to cover its existing commitments, adding that future pledges contained in the New Decade, New Approach deal would require “an awful lot more”.

He said Ms Mallon met Finance Minister Conor Murphy last week to set out her concerns and explain what is required for her department, ahead of the next Stormont budget being presented.


Parliamentary reports show first speaker only - follow this lnk for the full transcription.
Articles may come from parliamentary reports, various public news feeds and Google News Search. Content is republished here for context. Copyright is respected and remains with the original author at all times. Original Article:https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-51557506

This entry was posted in In The News and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.