Councillor calls for new 24-hour bus routes to be extended to serve Dublin Airport

Eva Osborne

Cllr John Kennedy has called for the new 24-hour bus routes launched in January, the E1 and the E2, to be extended to serve Dublin Airport.

Cllr Kennedy (Fine Gael, Stillorgan Ward) has initiated this call to take account of the recent decision made by Aircoach to halt services to Dublin Airport from suburbs such as Foxrock, Cabinteely, Cornelscourt, and Cherrywood.

Kennedy said: "The residents of the areas affected are accustomed to a direct bus service from their communities to Dublin Airport and it ought to be straightforward to simply extend the terminus for both the E1 and E2 routes to Dublin Airport, as they already stop in relatively nearby locations such as Ballymun and Santry.

"In any case, many visitors would expect more 24 hour bus services from Dublin Airport when arriving late at night and options to the Southside of the Dublin in this respect need to be significantly improved.

"The frequency of the E1 and the E2 routes needs to be increased for this proposed changes and such enhanced frequency is needed anyhow with the existing services especially given the existing demand around the Cabinteely area."

Kennedy said he intends to raise the matter further during the upcoming March meeting of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council to encourage this change.

The 24-hour E1 and E2 services become operational in January as part of phase 6a of the National Transport Authority’s (NTA) BusConnects Network Redesign in Dublin.

This phase sees the introduction of 13 new routes in total, delivered in partnership with Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland.

Routes introduced in Phase 6a serve communities between Dublin Airport, north Dublin, the city centre, south Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, and north Wicklow.