‘Cork city relying on cast-off buses’, TD says

Cork has received 68 buses from Limerick since 2020, and is set to receive 42 more, as delays to electric-bus charging infrastructure prevent the use of new buses in the city.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) has been purchasing only electric buses in the last six years, but Cork has no charging infrastructure so it cannot use them.

Between 2020 and 2024, Cork received 49 buses from Limerick, The Echo revealed in April last year.

The NTA has confirmed that 19 further plug-in hybrid, double-decker buses have been “cascaded” from Limerick to Cork since the start of 2025.

A spokesperson for the NTA said in April 2025 that Cork’s Capwell bus depot was too busy to allow depot electrification works to take place.

Instead, a temporary bus depot is being developed to allow buses to move out of Capwell, so it can be electrified, a depot the spokesperson said at the time was “on course to be completed in Q1 2026”.

The depot, on the former Tata Steel facility within the Port of Cork’s Tivoli Industrial Estate, which can only be used until the end of 2030, was originally to be up and running in the first half of 2025 before a completion date of March 2026 was set in January 2025.

Last December, the NTA told The Echo that “some delays” had been experienced, but that it was anticipated that the depot would become operational in April 2026.

Costs have also increased from €8m in original media reports in 2023 to €17m in 2025.

Last month, a Bus Éireann spokesperson said that they anticipate Tivoli will become operational “in the coming months”, but that no estimated completion date was available.

Limerick’s bus depot was electrified by 2024, and the city has been using electric buses since then.

A further 42 hybrid buses are planned to be sent to Cork by the end of 2027, the NTA said.

The information was provided to Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould, who questioned the NTA on the amount of “second-hand” buses being transferred.

The NTA pushed back on the “second-hand” label, saying: “These modern, attractive, and low-emission buses were first introduced in to passenger service as recently as 2022, and offer high levels of passenger comfort and accessibility.

“The opening of the Tivoli temporary bus depot (doubling bus depot capacity in Cork) and the forthcoming electrification of Capwell bus depot will, thereafter, enable new battery-electric buses to be allocated to Cork.”

Mr Gould expressed concern that delays to Cork city buses were worsened by the fact that “we’re relying on hand-me-down buses”.

“The Government haven’t bought a new diesel-only bus since 2019. That would be fine if there was somewhere to charge electric buses. There isn’t. We were told that Tivoli would be open by the start of this year.

“It’s now June and we still don’t have an opening date.”