Public Transport and Fare Increases: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Aidan Farrelly (SD), Kildare North

I thank my colleagues in Sinn Féin for putting forward this motion. I listened with attention to the Minister's opening remarks on the motion. If he can deliver what he just put forward, I will be the first to stand here in a couple of years and say he has done a really good job. There is an awful lot of good in this. The potential and the demand for public transport in this State are very clear. While we struggle to build significant capital projects, what the Minister has before him is a portfolio that offers real potential.
I also noted from the Minister's opening remarks the idea of stabilising the PSO with Supplementary Estimates. We know that a Supplementary Estimate was required only because it was not budgeted for properly in the first instance. Is that not a fair assessment? That is what the PSO costs year on year. In recent weeks, I have heard the Minister and many others emphasise that we are still below par when it comes public transport fees in the EU. We are either aspirational about public transport or we are regressive. If we compare ourselves to some EU states, they are moving in the other direction, towards free public transport, or certainly free for certain demographics in society. They are certainly not making tone-deaf decisions, such as increasing fares. There is no justification for doing that, even if, as the Minister says, fares have not increased in eight years. That rhetoric is simply not an acceptable reason for this decision.
Successive Governments' transport policy has focused on the movement of cars, not people. What the Government has done in its most recent budgets is treat roads funding and public transport funding as if they are a gift to the backbenchers, who are hungry to rush out to their constituencies to stand beside a new bus stop or new bus and say what they have delivered for their communities. It is unacceptable when we know that the truth is that the NTA is not receiving an adequate level of funding.
Demand for public transport services is at an historical high. We are also living in the midst of a climate crisis. What message do the fare increases send to commuters and public transport users? If we, collectively in this House, want to move as many people as possible away from cars towards public transport and secure that modal shift, as is surely our ambition, increasing the cost of public transport when demand is so high is a poor step.
We have heard time and again a figure of 140 new services. I have not seen the detail of that yet and I do not know if the Minister has either. However, he is asking people to pay now and see the detail of the plan later. This did not have to happen now. The NTA, the Minister and the Department could have been forthcoming, by at least providing a detailed breakdown of what those 140 new services will look like, when people are being asked to pay more. If that is available, I would love to see it, and I certainly would look forward to seeing it. In many ways, it would help people to digest what is a real tangible cut. We know this is the first in a series of cuts. "We cannot fund anything forever" is what Taoiseach said in response to these cuts. That concerns me, because if Donogh O'Malley had taken the same type of approach back in the 1960s when it came to free post-primary education, that sector would look very different now. We need ambition, and I am worried that this does not track with where we are going with this Government.
BusConnects has failed many. It has disconnected communities in Leixlip and Celbridge, to call it as it is. Many small communities have been left isolated when they had a more than adequate service to begin with. That desktop study has failed. To be honest, I am not a perfect mathematician. I struggled in the leaving certificate when it came to maths. I believe these fare increases will garner €70 million in additional revenue. This year, Irish Rail had to write off €50 million for a botched IT project. The Department of education, because it overspent, has imposed a levy of €18 million on the Department of Transport. Due to poor expenditure in Irish Rail and a levy imposed by the Department, there has been a write-off of €68 million. When I asked about this last week during oral questions, the Minister was not here and other Ministers said it was a budgetary decision.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29