Bus Services
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-16
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Evanne Ní Chuilinn (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I know this is not the Minister of State's portfolio and I appreciate her taking the Commencement matter, but I am really disappointed. I printed something this morning because I was afraid that what just happened might happen. The Minister of State has read, word for word, what was said by a Minister in the Dáil last week in response to questions from Deputy Jen Cummins on the 80 bus route. This means that the feedback, fixes and implementation the NTA says it wants to identify and hear about from public representatives are not relevant. If that is not stonewalling, I do not what is.
The Minister of State's reply is, word for word, the same as the response in the Dáil, right down to the turn of phrase such as "that being said" in the second paragraph. It is disappointing that the NTA has not reflected on what was raised in the Dáil last week. There is a reason I am raising this again today and it is that it has not gone away. I will go to a group of people outside Leinster House after this debate who are unhappy and the NTA has decided not to listen. The Minister of State mentioned a meeting, which I attended, and said it was about stakeholder engagement and engagement with public representatives. There was no engagement. We got 24 hours' notice of a virtual meeting and made suggestions which were not accepted.
I am not sure whether there is a communications dropout between the NTA and Minister of State. Again, this is not going to go away. It is probably a good idea for the Minister of State to bring as much as she can back to the Minister. I know he is not responsible for this on a day-to-day basis, but there will have to be a meeting between the NTA and Minister to get the bottom of this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-16