Public Transport and Fare Increases: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West

I thank Deputy Daly for bringing forward this motion. This is ultimately a question of political choice. It is possible to enhance public transport services and keep prices affordable. It was done during the last Government. Those four and a half years saw a huge expansion of bus services all over the country and at the same time they saw a 20% cut in everybody's public transport fares, a 50% cut for young adults and the securing of the funding to ensure under-nines could go free. Those were political choices made during the last Government and driven by a Green Party Minister in the Department of Transport.
This Government has made a different political choice. Yes, there may be some service enhancements but people are going to pay more for them. That is the difference at the heart of this. Do we look to keep fares low and continue to enhance services or do we go with the Minister's approach whereby we can have one or the other? My colleagues in the Green Party and I will always argue for keeping the fares low and expanding the services and we will make that argument any time. However, to hike fares by 15% on average in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis defies logic. This is a 15% increase when the rate of inflation is running at 3.4%, and the only promise the Government can make is that it will come back next year and hike fares again.
The Minister had a great line in his speech. He used the phrase "Despite any demand elasticity effects arising from the fare increase". Let us be clear about what that means. It means people who stop taking the bus or train due to unaffordability because of this decision. The NTA tells us to expect a 4.5% decrease in the number of passengers because of this decision. What sum is ultimately at issue here? It is €70 million. That is what the price increase is going to bring in. I am not saying it is a small sum, but when you place it beside the €1.3 billion that has been mobilised very quickly to assist other parts of society with the increases in their costs, and specifically their transport costs, you can understand why bus and train users are so angry. The electricity bills of people who use the bus and train are going up too. Their grocery bills are going up too and now, from 1 January, they are going to see a 15% hike in their transport costs.
This is a political choice. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have made the wrong choice here. They should provide the NTA with that €70 million, choose to expand public transport and keep it affordable. It can be done.

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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