Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 April 2022
97. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Transport the steps he is taking to ensure that there are appropriate youth travel public transport fares available for 16- to 18-year-olds across all types of public transport modes in Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20701/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraWhat steps is the Minister taking to ensure there are appropriate youth travel public transport fares available for 16- to 18-year-olds across all public transport modes in Ireland? I note a significant reduction for under-24s was introduced and I want to ensure that goes to all youths in the country.
I recognise the importance of incentivising our young people to use public transport to establish sustainable habits from an early age. Setting public transport fares at appropriate levels is a key element to achieving this objective. The Deputy will be aware that a suite of measures is being introduced by Government to help with the rising cost of living, including a 20% average fare reduction on public service obligation, PSO, public transport services until the end of 2022.
Currently, on all PSO public transport services, child fares are available to young people aged between 16 and 18 when paying with a personalised Leap card. For those paying with cash, the child fare is only applicable to those under 16. As such I strongly encourage those in the 16- to 18-year-old bracket to apply for their personalised Leap cards, which can be done easily on leapcard.ie. Further, the NTA previously introduced a single flat fare that allows those 18 and under with Leap cards to travel any distance on Dublin Bus, Luas and all DART and commuter rail services within the Dublin area for 80 cent. This represents a 20 cent reduction on the previous Leap fares.
From 9 May, the child fare rate on PSO services will reduce even further to 65 cent for the remainder of this year, due to the introduction of the 20% average cost-of-living fare reduction. Child Xpresso fares and child cash fares will likewise benefit from the 20% discount. Leap fares in Dublin are also included in the 90-minute fare initiative, enabling children to transfer to another mode of public transport without incurring additional costs within 90 minutes of initially tagging on.
The NTA is working hard to ensure that appropriate fares are available for young people on our PSO services. Paired with the significant increase in investment in vehicles and infrastructure, we continue to make public transport a more attractive means of travel. Finally, with the ongoing roll-out of BusConnects across Dublin and regional cities, it is intended that passenger fares will be further streamlined and rationalised as part of this process.
The Minister said quite clearly that when someone forms the habit at a young age of using public transport, it will extend into later life. The introduction of the fare reductions recently has not been well publicised but it is a significant decrease in public transport fares of 20% for everybody, but a 50% reduction for under-24s seems to have gone under the radar a bit. We need to publicise it and get people back on to public transport because of the emissions and congestion associated with transport.
However, advances are being made in transport and that is why it is so important to get young people on to and using it now. I look to measures such as the DART+ extension and expansion and the significant investment in BusConnects, Connecting Ireland, the rural bus system and the expansion in Cork, Galway and Limerick rail. I note the article today about new stations in Moyross and Ballysimon.
They are all important additions to the public transport network and that is why it is so vital we get young people on the system and that we encourage them onto it.
From 9 May, these 19-to-23-year-olds, those who are 23 and under, will also be able to avail of 50% discount fares across all services, including city, intercity and rural services. The NTA is working to assess deployment options in this regard. A working group is working with the commercial bus operators to see how this could also be rolled out into the commercial sector. Therefore, a range of measures is being undertaken, particularly for younger people and those who can access Leap cards. I refer as well to the young adult card. This is on top of the general 20% reduction in fares, which started on 18 April last outside the greater Dublin area. It will proceed inside the greater Dublin area from 9 May. I hope this combination of measures will have the effect of getting people back onto public transport as we come out of Covid-19 and that we see those numbers using the services begin to grow.
The importance of the Leap card cannot be underestimated. It is a simple and easy process to pick one up. We must, however, also explore more integrated ticketing. I note there are also plans to enable people to pay for their tickets with a credit card, and that makes perfect sense. In some cases, though, anomalies exist in fares across the rail network. It may possibly be the case with the bus network as well, but I am more familiar with the rail network. I recently investigated one such anomaly where people in Greystones were being classed as zone 6 for travel into Dublin city centre. I discussed this issue with representatives of the NTA. I am glad they agreed with my analysis of the situation and that Greystones has now been reduced to zone 5. It has resulted in a significant decrease in rail fares for people from Greystones travelling into Dublin city. A similar problem exists with the fare from Wicklow town. I studied that and it also seems quite excessive. There is an opportunity now for us to examine rail fares. I understand there are separate rail ticketing systems, but we must address these anomalies in the system and get more people back using public transport.
I am glad the NTA saw the sense of what Deputy Matthews was saying about that trip. I happened to use the DART to Greystones a good few times recently for various reasons. Not only is it good value in that regard, but it is also probably one of the most spectacular train journeys in the world as one comes out of the tunnels through Bray and Killiney heads. This is not the only location where this issue has arisen. In Mallow, we studied a situation and extended the scope of those areas covered by the metropolitan rail service. The Deputy is right to cite Limerick. There is potential to create a metropolitan rail network in the city, where a series of stations would be connected. A new station in Moyross, for example, would provide the potential to transform the way Limerick develops and the way public transport is seen. This should be the case across all our cities. I happened to visit Cork last week, where I considered the transport plans there in the context of BusConnects Cork. Integral to that endeavour is the new ticketing system to ensure we get exactly what the Deputy mentioned regarding having an integrated network. I refer to designing our bus networks to connect to our rail system and local links. That is all in train, if the pun may be excused.
