Public Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
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Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

We actually are. We are expanding services across the country. The numbers bear that out. To answer the Deputy's question directly, to be fair to my predecessor, he had bought additional electric buses because the capital was there. They were purchased forward. They were not all going to go into use over the course of a month or two. It has gone on longer than it should. We are looking at about 10% of our fleet in Dublin being electrified. That is a good thing. Limerick and Athlone are fully electrified. We are investing €1 in every €4 in this NPD between now and 2030 in the transport sector. It is just short of €25 billion to deliver projects like MetroLink, BusConnects and the quality bus corridors, which we are starting. I mention Ballymun-Finglas to the city and the Liffey Valley to city. Both of those contracts are signed and both will be in construction this year. We are in the delivery phase.
The Deputy is right that there are deficits. I am not painting the picture that everything is perfect - it is not. We have a growing population. We have growing housing and had good news on housing again this morning - a 33% increase in housing completions in quarter 1 of this year. That is the type of sustainable progress we will continue to make across housing, transport and education.

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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