Public Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Jennifer Whitmore (SD), Wicklow

I thank the Minister. I understand, and everyone understands, there is no easy way of doing it but there are certain weekends where the demand is so high it warrants running the DART. Perhaps it could just be for that individual day and the works could be done at other points in the weekend, which is what used to happen. Last year there were no additional Luas services provided on the weekend for the VHI mini-marathon and no additional bus services. I have been contacted by people who ended up arriving late to the entry point and were not allowed run the marathon. This is hugely disruptive to people. Just because there is low commuter demand on a bank holiday weekend does not mean there is low public demand. These are public transport services, not just commuter services. Relying on bank holiday weekends, especially ones when there are large-scale events, is the wrong way to go about these works. There has to be a way of doing this and managing this better.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30