Sir, – Cllr John Kennedy (Letters, September 24th) asks passengers to see an extra 60c a day as the cost of a better public transport service. Many of us would settle for the service we are already paying for.
Ghost buses remain a persistent feature of Dublin’s public transport network: services that appear on Real-Time Passenger Information displays and apps, but never arrive.
The Minister for Transport has called cancellation rates on some routes unacceptable, and the National Transport Authority (NTA) has been penalising operators over reliability. None of that is a revenue problem. Those journeys are already funded. Fixing them costs the passenger nothing.
Neither will fare increases deliver the 140 new services promised for 2027. New services need buses, depots and road space – and those are financed through capital expenditure, not from fares.
RM Block
The Government’s planned fare increases will cut passenger numbers, according to NTA data. Some people will cancel their journeys while others will be back in cars.
On the NTA’s own figures, a 15 per cent increase on fares raises about €80 million. It costs the commuter roughly €140 a year and it buys no improvement in what actually turns up. Shoppers learned to call this kind of deal shrinkflation: the same price, a smaller product. Here passengers are asked to pay more for a service that is already falling short.
Government parties should fund the network properly, and run the timetable already published. – Yours, etc,
EVA DOWLING,
Green Party councillor for Stillorgan,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Cllr John Kennedy (Letters, September 24th) argues that without next year’s 15 per cent fare increase, planned public transport improvements would be put at risk. The sums do not add up.
The National Transport Authority told the Oireachtas transport committee that the increase will raise about €70 million a year, less than a tenth of the €800 million gap Cllr Kennedy cites.
The NTA also expects it to cost passengers: roughly 3 per cent fewer for every 10 per cent rise in fares. Compare that with congestion. The Department of Transport estimates it costs the Greater Dublin Area more than €330 million a year, almost five times what the fare rise will raise, and projects that to exceed €1.5 billion by 2040.
Every commuter priced back into a car adds to that bill, to our emissions and to the toll on public health. Yet the Government has spent much of this year cutting fuel excise, and its 2026-2030 transport investment plan gives public transport €10.1 billion against €9.7 billion for roads, a long way from the promised two-to-one split.
Spain tackled the same cost-of-living crisis differently. Free and discounted passes since 2022 have helped drive a one-third rise in public transport use, and it has since launched a €60 national monthly pass.
The State is subsidising the problem and taxing the solution. That is not prudence; it is a choice to put the car first. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN KEEGAN,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The current petrol and diesel subsidies effectively take funds from those who do not drive much or at all and favour those who drive a lot. At the same time they do nothing to encourage less driving.
Concurrent with this policy, there is to be a blanket increase in public transport fares – thus penalising those who do not drive.
I agree wholeheartedly with Barbara Clancy’s letter when she claims that the Government’s message is that the car comes first. – Yours, etc,
COLETTE MCNAMEE,
Foxrock,
Dublin 18.
