Public Transport and Fare Increases: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (IND), Dublin Mid-West

It is almost like we are watching an episode of "Austin Powers". He has woken up from the sixties and then he sees the Minister - Dr. Evil - with this cunning plan. The trains are overcrowded and the buses are full when they turn up. It is a case of "Sure lads, how are we going to help with the demand situation here? I know. We're going to raise the price of public transport to discourage people from using the service". That demand reduction is built into the moronic idea of increasing the price of public transport at a time when people are suffering in many other walks of life. There are areas where less demand will lead to an improved service for others but there are people who live in places in my constituency, such as Adamstown, Clonburris and Seven Mills, where the trains are always full but the people in these houses are only given 0.75 parking spaces per housing unit and do not even have the option to drive. They cannot charge an EV to try the greener driving option because they cannot tag on their domestic charging tariff with it. They have no choice but to use public transport but they cannot rely on it because the buses do not turn up and if buses are cancelled, there is no real-time information.
A tourist in Dublin trying to pay with a credit card cannot do so because we still do not have that technology on a bus and the driver is delaying traffic explaining to that person that they need to pay in a different way. The system is not fit for purpose and, as I have said before, the NTA is not fit for purpose. It is a real kick in the craw to increase prices when people are suffering from increases in the price of food, fuel and electricity. That is what this Government should be getting right now - a full stop for this sort of measure.

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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