Cork city bus fare increases 'sneaky, underhanded and unfair', says TD
From Monday July 20, passengers using Bus Éireann's Cork city bus services will be able to transfer between buses as often as they need within 90 minutes, for a single fare of €1.70. Picture: Larry Cummins.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) has been accused of “sneakiness” as it announces increases of up to 50c in Cork city bus fares alongside long awaited improvements.
From Monday July 20, passengers using Bus Éireann's Cork city bus services will be able to transfer between buses as often as they need within 90 minutes, for a single fare of €1.70.
Passengers will also be able to tap their Leap Card on new on-board ticket validators, which will be on a pole near the entrance, rather than having to go to the driver, a measure expected to reduce boarding times and speed up the buses overall.
However, adult Leap Card fares are to move from current fares of €1.35 and €1.55, dependant on distance travelled, to a single flat fare of €1.70, while cash fares will rise from €1.90 or €2.20 to €2.40.
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Child Leap fares are decreasing from 65c to 55c, and child cash fares from 90c to 80c, while young adult and student Leap Card users will increase by 10c to 85c.
Children under eight and anyone with a Free Travel Pass will still be eligible to travel free by tapping on using the new validators.
Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould said: “What we are seeing now is increases of up to 26% for adult fares in Cork’s bus system.
“For someone getting the bus twice a day, five days a week over 48 weeks of the year to get to work, this will cost them an additional €240.
“This is sneaky, it is underhanded and it is unfair,” he said, querying if fare increases were needed to subsidise improvements to the Cork bus infrastructure due to an absence of government funding.
The two improvements were originally intended to be in place in the third quarter of last year, but the NTA pushed the deadline to early 2026, before the deadline was pushed again.
The NTA said last year that the delays came about after the new validator machines were bought, when testing “identified that the speed of the hardware in processing Leap Card transactions, and the overall software resilience of the system, is less than expected”.
Social Democrats councillor Niamh O’Connor said that the infrastructure is welcome: “but it is also frankly ridiculous that Dublin has had this kind of integrated fare system for the last five years and Cork is only getting it now.”
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