Public Transport
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-21
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Noel Grealish (IND), Galway West

My late first cousin, and his two sons and daughters participated in the fleadh cheoil on many occasions, so I know Tubbercurry very well. I thank Senator Cosgrove for her question. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important topic with members of the House today.
From the outset, I would like to clarify that the Minister for Transport has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport, and I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, who is a huge supporter of the western rail corridor, as the Senator knows, and has put a lot of work into that during the programme for Government and continues to work on it. I know good progress has been made on it. Neither the Minister nor his officials are involved in the day-to-day operation of public transport services, such the scheduling of timetables or monitoring of routes, which are an operational matter for Bus Éireann. Bus Éireann operates both public service obligation, PSO, services, funded by the State subvention, and Expressway intercity services, which operate on a commercial basis and do not receive any State subvention. While Expressway is a commercial operation and decisions about its network are a matter for the board, the potential implications of any changes, including for passengers, staff and the wider public transport system, give rise to a number of policy considerations.
That being said, the Minister is aware of the announcement made by Bus Éireann in March 2026 to withdraw some of its services which operate under its commercial service Expressway. It is important to note that the particular route the Senator raised, route 64, is not one of the services which was withdrawn and continues to operate as normal. The decision to withdraw routes 4 and 52 and curtail route 40 was made following a financial and operational review carried out by Bus Éireann with regard to Expressway over recent years, which sought to ensure long term sustainability of the company.
Regarding Bus Éireann's decision on services, there are implications for the public service obligation programme vis-à-vis the availability of funding for service replacements as part of the National Transport Authority's PSO determination process. The Department of Transport acknowledges that any withdrawal of Expressway services will have an impact on some passengers via reduced services and, in some cases, the loss of direct connections. However, it will continue to liaise with the NTA in this regard. The NTA has confirmed that it would seek to mitigate the impacts to the public through targeted PSO interventions where feasible, addressing the most critical connectivity gaps. It is important to note that any interventions in this case would have to take into account competition considerations and available funding and resources in the PSO programme.
Similarly, with regard to the other operator mentioned in the Senator's question, the National Transport Authority has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally and for decisions regarding the routes of these services in conjunction with the relevant transport operators. The service mentioned by the Senator is a non-subvented service that is run on a commercial and competitive basis by the operator itself and does not receive funding from the Exchequer.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-21