23.— (1) The Authority shall from time to time prepare and publish guidelines in relation to the licensing of public bus passenger services under this Part.

(2) Notwithstanding the generality of subsection (1), guidelines under this section—

(a) shall include the criteria the Authority proposes to apply to the consideration of applications for the grant of licences under section 10, and

(b) may set out the circumstances where a temporary alteration of a public bus passenger service does not necessitate the grant of an amendment to a licence under section 14, and

(c) may refer to matters relating to the application for, grant, renewal, transfer or amendment of a licence, including the processes relating to applications, such as the timeframes for the consideration of applications, for the grant, renewal, transfer and amendment of licences, and the conditions that may be applied in respect of a licence.

(3) The Authority may amend any provision contained in guidelines published under this section and shall publish any such amendment.

(4) Before publishing guidelines or any part of them or amendments to guidelines, under this section, the Authority—

(a) shall submit a draft of the proposals to the Minister for any views to be given in writing to the Authority within one month of the request,

(b) shall submit a draft of the proposals to the Joint Oireachtas Committee for its opinion and request that any such opinion be given in writing to the Authority within one month of the request,

(c) shall submit a draft of the proposals to the Competition Authority for its opinion as to whether any provision of the draft would, if given effect, be likely to result in competition being prevented, restricted or distorted, and request that any such opinion be given in writing to the Authority within one month of the request,

(d) shall publish, in such manner as the Authority considers appropriate, a draft of the proposals and shall give persons at least one month from the date of publication of the draft within which to make written representations in relation to the draft, and

(e) following the consultation at paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d), and having considered any views given by the Minister under paragraph (a), any opinion given to it by the Joint Oireachtas Committee under paragraph (b) and the Competition Authority under paragraph (c) and the representations made under paragraph (d), if any, shall publish the guidelines or parts or amendments of them with or without modification.

(5) Guidelines prepared and published by the Authority under this section shall be laid before each of the Houses of the Oireachtas by the Authority.

(6) The Authority shall cause notice of the publication of guidelines under this section to be placed in one or more national newspapers and on its website on the internet.

(7) In this section “Joint Oireachtas Committee” means a Joint Committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas to which the Oireachtas has assigned the role of examining matters relating to transport.