Tóibín: travel costcuts could helpwith climate plan

A call to have public transport charges reduced to help Ireland achieve its environmental objectives has been made by Aontú leader and Meath West TD, Peadar Tóibín.

If ticket prices were cut, there would be greater use of public transport – in line with the objective of achieving 2030 decarbonisation targets, Deputy Tóibín said. However, government appears to have no such plan in place:

“I wrote to the Minister to find out what his plans were for reducing costs of public transport. However, the response I received from the National Transport Authority (NTA) was disappointing. There is no plan for the reduction of public transport fares,” Deputy Tóibín told the Westmeath Examiner this week.

Public transport in Ireland is expensive and, in many areas, non-existent he said, adding that if the government is serious about meeting emissions reductions by 2030, there will have to be greater incentives to use public transport.

“Reducing costs would be a huge motivation for people to revert to using bus and rail,” he said, going on to say that the NTA has said that a significant reduction in fares would require a substantial increase in the current level of subvention and that the likely significant increase in passenger numbers would also create a requirement for additional bus and rail fleet, vehicle depots as well as more staff.

“These are crucial concerns. But there is no mention in the government’s Climate Action Plan as regards the increasing of these resources, as the sole focus is on replacing vehicles with an electrical fleet.

“There are many other factors to be considered in encouraging the use of public transport which the government have neglected. Public transport is the most efficient way to move people around : it relieves congestion and radically reduces our carbon footprint.It should be accessible to people from different income backgrounds. And the government needs to start planning its expansion now.”