In 2012, public transport in London rolled out contactless payment on public transport.
The 31st Dáil was one year into office when the measure was rolled out across the British capital, and now it is likely that Irish citizens will be waiting for the 35th Dáil to roll around before they can avail of the same services.
A June Oireachtas meeting heard that plans to roll out contactless payment on Dublin Bus won’t be in place until 2029 “at the earliest,” another symptom of the sloth-like pacing of Ireland’s planning system.
The government gave the National Transport Authority a 2022 deadline to implement the rollout of contactless payment on public transport, but the Oireachtas meeting heard that while a trial run will be introduced in 2027 the full service is not expected to be rolled out by 2029.
Fine Gael TD Grace Boland remarked, “Greece defaulted on a debt repayment ten years ago and they have it rolled out now.”
“Anyone travelling to London can see people using their smartphones everywhere on public transport; why are we so late using the technology here?” she asked.
“This is simply not good enough. Contactless payments must be introduced across Dublin far quicker than 2029.”
Scotland, with a similar population to Ireland, rolled out the service on its public transport services in 2017.
Labour TD and transport spokesperson Ciáran Ahern said there was no “political attention” beign paid to the issue.
“It’s such obvious low-hanging fruit to make everyone’s lives easier, but as we have seen time and again, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are utterly incapable of delivering timely public infrastructure,” he said.
“Since contactless payments were introduced on Transport for London services over a decade years ago, over 50% of customers now use this service over the Oyster card or cash payments. I’ve no doubt the interest would be here in Ireland for this service too.
“Not only has cash become less frequently used across society, but even the use of physical cards is on the decline, given that most smartphones have a payment function. Carrying around a LEAP card is really a thing of the past.”
Ahern said, “vending machines have been fitted with contactless payment, Churches use contactless payment for donations, it really beggars belief that commuters could be waiting until 2029 to be able to use their cards to pay for transport daily.”
Speaking in May 2023, then-Minister for Transport Éamon Ryan said the delays were down to issues surrounding IT in Ireland’s bus networks.
“They put a lot of patches in, which means it is much higher accuracy no,w but we do need a much wider entire IT system.”
If the construction of the National Children’s Hospital or the Metrolink is anything to go by, expect contactless payment on Dublin’s public transport around the same time Kilkenny wins the All-Ireland Football Championship.