Bus Services
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

It is very positive that the bus is not going to go up Bridge Street because it can take so long to get up that hill. People are just waiting there and it is a complete and utter waste of time. However, the issue is that there was no public consultation about changing the route to include the 130. Part of the overall difficulty is the time at which consultations for BusConnects were held. Not many people engaged because they did not know how difficult the change was going to be.
Consultations happened during the Covid pandemic and it was very difficult to imagine a bus route when you were not exactly sure how that was going to go. I am very glad that the NTA is monitoring things and has admitted that this has not been what it expected and hoped it would be. That is also the experience of the people living in the area.
As the Minister of State has outlined, we had a meeting with the NTA. I asked whether there was something wrong with the route 130 that meant it had to be fixed. I did not get an answer to that. However, if a bus route is working, why not leave it? Why do we have to link things up? I disagree that going to Merrion Square would be a difficulty. I do not understand what the difficulty would be. It could go down Hawkins Street. I appreciate that the Minister of State's expertise will come into play when BusConnects starts in Cork but there is a possibility of getting to Merrion Square through Hawkins Street. There are ways around this.
The NTA may be experts on buses but I would argue that the people who have to use them every single day are experts, too. The NTA should be listening. I look forward to meeting the NTA in the next couple of days. I am thankful that it finally agreed to meet Deputy Gary Gannon and me; we are going to meet it next week. I will be bringing this issue up again because there is still frustration. I am not sure the solution the NTA has provided is going to be acceptable to the community. In fact, I know it will not be because they are out protesting again on Saturday.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11