Departmental Budgets
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Aidan Farrelly (SD), Kildare North

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. It is a bit of a leap to ask us to accept that it is still part of the negotiations. The Minister of State definitely knows by now where that €18 million shortfall is going to be made up and it is not part of the budgetary process. He could tell us. I have asked him to detail to us what that is going to look like for 2027. He is choosing not, and that is unfortunate. We will see it come out in a couple of weeks and that is fine, but this was an opportunity to outline it. Otherwise, what we are going to see are fare hikes - they are going to be part of that - and a lack of investment in services. The Minister of State is talking to us about ambition, and I accept what he says, but that ambition last year was zero. There were no new services, certainly when it came to buses.
We have an opportunity here to keep the fares as they were and actually look to further reduce them, not increase them. All I can assume is that the likes of the fare increases will go directly towards this €18 million bill that the Department of public expenditure is putting on Departments. Unless the Minister of State can tell me otherwise, what is looking likely for next year is a continued lack of investment in services and further fare increases, which is what the NTA has said, in order to meet what is ultimately other Departments' misexpenditure.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24