Public Transport and Fare Increases: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Michael Collins (II), Cork South-West

At a time when families, workers and pensioners are already under enormous financial pressure, increases of around 15% across many public transport services, including Local Link, rural services, buses and trains will be another blow. The biggest problem we have in this country is accountability regarding transport. I do not think the NTA is accountable. I thank Sinn Féin for this very good motion.
We had the NTA before us at the committee. West Cork Connect has offered to take over the whole running of the Kinsale area, which would save millions of euro for the State. I asked the NTA why it would stop that. Basically, West Cork Connect is a private bus service. Bus Éireann is trotting around after it, just in case it would have any little bit of success. Good God almighty, what is wrong? Millions can be saved, so why is the NTA not considering that instead of using these heavy-handed tactics to make sure that good private operators are out of work, and instead of working with them and pushing that service? Millions could be saved and services put into areas like Caheragh, Drimoleague and Skibbereen. There is no bus service from Bantry or Kealkill to Macroom and Drinagh has no bus service. The NTA had tenders for Clonakilty and Grange a year or a year and a half ago, but it never delivered the service. It is a farcical situation. The NTA tells us there is no money. They are broke. The whole system is in collapse from start to finish and we are not getting what we could call accountability.
School transport is a shambles. It is an absolute disaster in many areas, regardless of where people are. It is the same complaint. I brought it up in the Dáil last week, but it has been put off as if there is no problem. There is a major crisis. People have spent five years getting a bus ticket and in the sixth year they will not get a bus ticket. It is outrageous. You could not make it up if you tried to make it up because people would not believe it could happen in any other world out there.
Instead of connecting Ireland, we are disconnecting Ireland. We are not using the private operators to run some of the services and Bus Éireann to run services in other areas, which would ensure that everybody gets some good out of the transport service. While I am talking about the transport service, what about people with disabilities? What about Megan O’Sullivan in Allihies, near Castletownbere, who sits at home because she has intellectual disabilities? She will not be picked up. Either her father or her mother will have to give up their job to take her to the services, which she can make such a success of if she gets there. Instead, she is left sitting at home in a chair. That is the kind of Ireland we have.
The Government has forgotten the people of Castletownbere. It has forgotten the people of Caheragh, Kealkill, Grange and Timoleague. It is not good enough. The money is there but it is blown apart. I am part of a rural transport board, or Local Link or whatever they want to call it nowadays. The Government took the buses from us and decided the NTA would run the service. It splashed out millions, not hundreds of thousands but millions of euro extra. While I am on that, I would like to wish David O'Brien, the Local Link manager in west Cork, the very best as he is retiring this weekend. He has been a brilliant servant to the people of west Cork and the whole of County Cork over the last number of years.

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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