Dublin Bus has told the Government it wants the power to allocate routes to private operators when the bus market is liberalised. The proposal is contained in a strategic plan, seen by The Irish Times, which says there is "little doubt" that the company will face increasing competition in the future.

But while the CIÉ subsidiary wants to tender services to private companies as the market opens, the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, is thought to be strongly opposed to the proposal. He wants this responsibility vested in an independent regulatory body.

Sources close to Mr Brennan said the plan did not make sense. "You can't have the dominant company in a market deciding who gets what," said one person.

But the Dublin Bus document said the model would allow it to become the implementing agency for the regulatory authority, protecting its own strengths. It would also ensure that the company would not be dismantled.

Senior sources within Dublin Bus deny that the document implies the company effectively accepts the inevitability of competition in the market. They say this has not yet been agreed by the company or its parent, the CIÉ Group. Neither has it been agreed with the group's traditionally militant trade unions.

Such sources see the strategic plan as a tentative document only because the Government has yet to produce firm proposals for the extent and scope of regulation in the market.

Still, the document said Dublin Bus was in a position to proceed with the "immediate tendering" of 40 buses and 60 schools services subject to agreement with all stakeholders. With 1,600 buses on the Dublin network, the company said up to a quarter or 400 could be tendered.

This is in line with Mr Brennan's pledge to open a quarter of the Dublin market to competition, although he wants this achieved this year.

The Minister wants to break up CIÉ, establishing Dublin Bus and its sister companies Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann as independent entities.

Such proposals were presented by the Government's consultants, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), to the CIÉ board on Thursday. But while the State company has yet to formulate its response, there are strong indications that the group's trade unions are very unhappy.

The National Bus and Railworkers' Union (NBRU) expressed disappointment with the plan on Thursday and it emerged yesterday that officials in the union had refused to attend a briefing by PwC in the Department. Other trade unionists who did attend the meeting are said to have expressed dissatisfaction with the plan.

The NBRU general secretary, Mr Liam Tobin, wrote to Mr Brennan on Tuesday, complaining that he had expressed determination to face down union opposition to his plans. With Mr Brennan stating that he was "deadly serious", Mr Tobin said such utterances set a bad tone for future meetings with the union.

Referring to the issuing of new licences to private-sector rivals to Bus Éireann, Mr Tobin said: "Recent developments suggest that privatisation is in fact already under way and we need urgent clarification of the situation."