Paul Murphy: Why 50 Electric Buses Are Sitting Idle

Minister, in response to the fuel crisis other countries are rolling out additional services. Some are making public transport free, as we have called for for a long time. You didn't provide any funding for new services in this budget. Will you reverse that decision in light of the fuel crisis? Will you provide additional funding for new services to be rapidly rolled out to alleviate the fuel cost of living crisis and to enable us to get off as quickly as possible reliance on fossil fuels? Thanks Deputy. As Minister for Transport I fully recognise the pressure that people are under and businesses due to rising fuel costs. Public transport has a particularly important role to play at times like this by providing more affordable and sustainable alternatives for many people. We are seeing public transport usage increase year on year. Last year we saw a record 365 million public transport journeys and in that context I'm keeping under close review how the public transport system is equipped to respond to current pressures. My department and the NTA remain in close contact with operators to monitor demand and operational impacts as the situation evolves. At the same time it is important that any such measures are carefully considered and aligned with available resources so that they are effective, sustainable and can deliver real benefits. The immediate priority has been to protect the existing services and ensure continuity across the network within the resources allocated in the PSO programme. In PSO we secured an unprecedented allocation of 940 million euro in the public service obligation. That was a 43% uplift on the previous budget because I want to get us to a sustainable footing in relation to the funding of public transport services, where previously it had been where additional routes were added and at the end of every year a supplementary budget was sought for transport. That's not the way to plan things and it's not the way to plan things going forward. To further support the sector we approved a range of measures to mitigate rising fuel costs and this does include actually the transport sector through the road transport support scheme. That will support bus and coach operators providing TFI, local link services and school transport also. If you look at our charging structure in Ireland for public transport, it compares very favourably with our European counterparts and we've broadened free services as well, up to nine-year-olds free travel. We're seeing the seniors free travel and the companion pass which has been rolled out as well, all of which are free. But we keep the fare structure and the fares under constant monitoring and we review it on a regular basis. To respond to the climate crisis, to respond to the cost of living and fuel crisis, we obviously need to rapidly roll out as much public transport as quickly as is possible. That's not what's currently happening. We know that Dublin bus is sitting on 50 new electric buses, expensive, very good quality presumably, sitting there not being used because of a lack of appropriate infrastructure. The oldest new electric bus is sitting there since November 2023. Two years and five months we own this bus, it's not on the road, it's not being used. Why? One reason is because of a lack of charging infrastructure and because Broadstone buses can't be charged during the day because the grid is overloaded. Can you not say to your government colleagues, well we should be prioritising charging our electric buses instead of giving all of our electricity to the data centres. The other thing, each time we add one of these electric buses to the fleet, we're taking one diesel bus out. Why on earth are we taking buses, regardless of what fuel they are, why are we taking them out of the fleet when we should be adding capacity, regardless of what fuel they are at this stage, it's much better for people to be in public transport rather than in fleet. Let's just turn to some facts as well. Firstly, there's more people using public transport than ever. 365 million public transport journeys last year is a 6% increase. Our fare structure is affordable and we have many free fares across the system, which we will continue to maintain. The other issue in relation to the electrification of our fleet, Limerick fully electrified, Lone fully electrified, and yes there were additional buses purchased in the last government which are still being deployed at the rate of two a week. All of the additional electric buses will be deployed across Dublin by this year and the remainder of them in quarter one of next year. It's actually two a week going into service now and I visited Broadstone myself to see that. And it isn't about grid capacity, by the way, it was, there were issues with charging infrastructure, you're correct, I've addressed that. This is a matter that I inherited, which we're dealing with, and Bus All Clear and their drivers have been really good in that regard and actually a lot of people are getting used to the use of those EV buses and we'll continue to roll them out. There were issues, those issues are being worked on, those issues are being addressed, and the remainder of those buses will be rolled out over the course of these few months and they're being rolled out at the rate of two a week. If you can give me a date when all the electric buses will be in use, I would like that and then I will hold you to it. There's 50 brand new electric buses still not being used. The issue you didn't come back to is each time we add one of these electric buses, we're withdrawing a diesel bus. Why on earth are we doing that? Why aren't we having more buses in the system? That's what we need, we need a lot more buses. Why are we scrapping routes? We introduced the Bus Connects route, fine, but then why are we withdrawing other routes as a consequence of that? I'll give you an example. In my constituency, the 49 bus, there's a campaign to reinstate it, which was cut when the F1 Bus Connects route was introduced. It's a downgrade for a lot of people. It's taking people commuting to work to the city centre from Tala, from Firhouse, from Knockline, an extra 20 to 30 minutes each way, which is ridiculous. It's driving people back into cars as a result. Why not, in response to the fuel crisis, reinstate the 49? And there's other examples from other parts of the cities. We should be expanding routes, expanding buses, not keeping them, just swapping one in for another. We actually are, and we're expanding service right the way across the country, and the numbers bear that out. Just to answer your question directly, the electric buses, which to be fair to my predecessor, had bought additional at the time because the capital was there. They were purchased forward, so they weren't all going to go into use over the course of a month or two. It's gone on longer than it should, but we're looking at about 10% of our fleet in Dublin being electrified. That's a good thing, as I said, Limerick fully electrified, at Lone fully electrified, and we're actually going to invest, and we are investing, one in every four euro in this NDP between now and 2030 is in the transport sector, just short of 25 billion to deliver projects like Metrolink, to add, to deliver projects like Bus Connects and the quality bus corridors, which were starting, the Ballymun Finglas to the city, the Liffey Valley to the city, both of those contracts signed, both will be in construction this year. So we're in the delivery phase, and you're right, look, there are deficits. I'm not painting a picture that everything's perfect. They're not. We've a growing population. We've growing housing. Very good news on housing again this morning. 33% increase in completions of housing in quarter one of this year, and that's the type of sustainable progress we'll continue to make across housing, across transport, across education.