Sir, – Paul Waldron is right that higher fares will make motorists think twice about switching to public transport (“Not a fare exchange”, Letters, September 22nd). But the debate too often casts each of us as a motorist, a public transport user or a cyclist. Most of us are more than one, and we choose how to travel journey by journey, not once and for all.
We take the bus one day and the car the next, and often combine modes, driving to a park-and-ride or cycling to the station. A 15 per cent fare rise alone may not change that, but alongside cheaper fuel it can tip the scales for anyone already weighing up cost against convenience.
And who gains from an excise cut on petrol and diesel? Rural drivers with no alternative may need help, but the cut rewards every motorist, including those with a bus at the door. Those who rely on the bus, whether in the city or on TFI Local Link in rural Ireland, simply pay more when fares increase.
When fuel prices soared this spring, the Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania made public transport free for a time to keep people out of their cars. Here, we are doing the opposite. Even if passengers stay on the bus, the Government is telling them the car comes first. – Yours, etc,
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BARBARA CLANCY,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Paul Waldron (Letters, September 22nd) criticises points I made on the standard public transport fare increase set for 2027 (“Fare Exchange”, Letters, September 19th) as being, in his view, “out of touch”.
Waldron referred to “hard-pressed” motorists (in a financial burden perspective) needing greater incentivisation to use public transport. As a regular Luas and bus passenger myself, I can attest to the fact that public transport rush-hour commuters often are familiar with being “hard-pressed” – overcrowded into tight, claustrophobic spaces within packed trams, buses and trains.
Accordingly, the seeking of greater bus frequency and introduction of new services has been regularly requested from the National Transport Authority by politicians. During the Oireachtas joint committee on transport debate on September 16th, the NTA’s deputy chief executive Hugh Creegan made it clear that 140 strived for enhancements to new public transport service initiatives and capacity enhancements are to be proposed alongside the scheduled fare increase in terms of plans for 2027.
[ My train fare may go up by €606 and that doesn’t include the seatOpens in new window ]
Without a fare increase, these measures alone would be imperilled, along with any other future possible enhancements that could be proposed.
Creegan outlined to the committee that fare revenue in 2025 was just €576 million, while operating costs in the same year rose to €1.379 billion. This factor involves an increasingly heavy dependence on public service obligation funding to plug the difference.
While such funding should ideally be increased, without some modest fare increases in tandem, extra services frequency or new services to make travel by public transport more comfortable and reliable would likely not be realised, given relevant forecasts by the NTA on the matter.
It is in that context that I argued a tangible sense of objectivity should prevail in relation to what commuters paying an extra 30 cent per 90-minute journey period (or, as Waldron was keen to stress, in effect an extra 60 cent per commuting day) actually would represent in terms of its real impact cost to public transport provision into the foreseeable future. – Yours, etc,
Cllr John Kennedy,
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Offices,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
