Bus Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

On my way down we were discussing the odds that Deputy Heneghan would raise the issue. I assure him that a lot of work is going on in this regard right across the education system. I will address the matter in response to the matter raised by Deputy Whitmore.
I thank Deputy Heneghan for raising this important topic, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. While the Minister has responsibility for policy and overall funding for public transport, neither he nor his officials have any involvement in the day-to-day operation of public transport services. The statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally rests with the National Transport Authority. The NTA works with the public transport operators, who deliver the services and have responsibility for day-to-day operational matters.
That being said, I assure the Deputy that the Government is strongly committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic sustainable mobility options, and public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal. To support this objective, in budget 2026, the Department of Transport secured €940 million of funding for public service obligation, PSO, and TFI Local Link services – a significant 43% uplift, and an increase from €658.4 million in 2025.
BusConnects is the largest investment in the bus system in the history of the State and is managed by the NTA. The aim of the network is to improve the existing Transport for Ireland system through enhanced services with high-frequency spines and new local, orbital and radial routes. In regard to the NTA's proposed merger of the Dublin Bus 130 route with the 80 route, the NTA acknowledges that, for a variety of reasons, including city centre congestion, routes such as the 80, which replaced the 26 route, did not meet the expectations of customers following the introduction of the F-spine under phase 7.
When rolling out phases of the BusConnects network, the NTA commits to monitoring new services, identifying issues and implementing fixes where appropriate. The NTA takes all feedback from the public very seriously, as it should, because it is the public who are using the system. As the Deputy will be aware, on 28 November, the NTA announced that it would amend the alignment of route 80, which runs from Chapelizod to the city centre, in response to passenger needs. The amended route now continues along the north quays to O'Connell Bridge and Custom House Quay before heading north. The NTA also announced a proposal to merge route 80 with the existing route 130, which currently runs from the city centre to Clontarf. The temporary re-routing of bus route 80 will be implemented on 8 February. In the inbound direction, the re-routed route 80 will continue along the north quays to O'Connell Bridge, turning south onto D'Olier Street, College Street, College Green and Dame Street, before rejoining the existing 80 route on South Great Georges Street. The outbound direction is the same but will use Westmoreland Street instead of D'Olier Street. It is, of course, acknowledged that these changes require some passengers to make their journey in a different way. However, in other cases, customers now benefit from direct services where transfers were previously required, while others may need to interchange. The TFI 90-minute fare ensures that transfers incur no additional cost for the customer. Following discussions with-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-22