€97 spent on bus improvements in west Dublin in 2022 and 2023, Currie reveals

Dublin West was in a unique position in the last Dáil term; it was represented by the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the leader of the Green Party at various stages between 2020 and 2024.

Even having all that political power contained locally didn’t fix the reality for people on the ground however.

Speaking in the Dáil last week, local Fine Gael TD Emer Currie said that commuters in her constituency can’t wait until 2026 or 2027 for bus services to improve.

Raising the issue with Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, Currie said, “our existing services are really struggling with demand.”

The Fine Gael TD specifically questioned how much money was being spent on bus services in the Dublin West constituency, to which O’Brien replied that over €18.75 million has been spent on bus services in Dublin West, with €1.6 million being spent on improvements to existing services.

O’Brien noted that of that  €1.6 million figure, €1.25 million was spent in 2020 alone.

That figure, Currie argues, is nowhere near enough to keep up with demand.

“The €1.6 million that has been spent on enhancement has been patchy,” she said.

Figures obtained by Currie revealed that a grand total of €0 was spent on improving services in 2023, and in 2022, a whopping total of €97 was spent.

In 2024, €407,000 was invested in enhancing existing bus services in Dublin West, and O’Brien confirmed that an additional €500,000 is also committed this year to specifically address punctuality and reliability issues on routes 37, 38 and 70.

With a grand total of €97 being spent over two years on improving bus services, this has had a tangible effect for commuters.

Currie said, “there were no new bus services and limited enhancement of the existing ones.”

She noted that fellow Dublin West TD and Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman called on the government to “not put the brakes on progress,” but Currie noted the discrepancy with that request.

“The Green Party had a motion calling on the Government not to put the brakes on progress, but under a Green Party minister, our community saw a decline in the reliability of its services,” she said. 

“I am depending on the Minister to take the opportunity to change that.”

“While BusConnects is promoted as a transformative project, and it will be, we have to properly invest in expanding and improving the services that people currently rely on in the here and now,” Currie said.

O’Brien replied that while it was true the Greens controlled the Transport brief in the last government, he said “the government is responsible for the delivery of all services across the board and we are heavily committed to public transport.”

“I have said to all our operators, rail, Luas and bus, that the customer has to be first in this, and I have said that to the NTA too.”