Public Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

There are 50 brand new electric buses still not being used. The issue that the Minister did not come back to is that each time we add one of the electric buses, we are withdrawing a diesel bus. Why on earth are we doing that? Why are we not having more buses in the system? That is what we need. We need a lot of more buses. Why are we scrapping routes? We introduced the BusConnects routes. That is fine. Why are we withdrawing other routes as a consequence of that? For example, in my constituency, there is a campaign to reinstate the 49 bus, which was cut when the F1 Busconnects route was introduced. It is a downgrade for a lot of people. It is taking people commuting to work to the city centre from Tallaght, Firhouse and Knocklyon an extra 20 to 30 minutes each way, which is ridiculous. It is driving people back into cars as a result. In response to the fuel crisis, why not reinstate the 49 bus? There are examples from other parts of the city. We should be expanding routes and buses, not swapping one in for another.

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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