Bus Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-14
============================================================

Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I do not even have time to go through the number of issues I have but I will try to get some of them out. With BusConnects, many areas were abandoned, particularly working-class areas with older populations. Finglas east no longer has any connection to the north inner city whatsoever. Ballinteer no longer has any connection to Dún Laoghaire. These are older populations. Why does the Minister of State think people then get into cars, which increases congestion? The 46A and the 145 services, which are now the E spine routes, going past UCD, no longer have any connection with Heuston Station, where many of the students come to the universities from. It is crazy. We said this. Buses on many of the spines crossing the city are guaranteed to get caught up in congestion. We said in advance that these things would not work. Privatisation makes it all even worse because Go-Ahead does not give the same decent pay and conditions to people, so it cannot hold onto mechanics and bus drivers. As a result, it does not even have the people to operate buses on the route. It is a shambles and the Government has to do something about it, not just say it is terrible.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-14