Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he wouldn’t be “overly concerned” about unnecessary trips on public transport and he didn’t think “many people are going around on buses and trains just for the craic”.
However, Mr Varadkar said there would be “genuine problems” with free public transport in relation to costs and capacity.
The Taoiseach was responding to People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith in the Dáil on Tuesday, who pointed to a recent parliamentary question response she received from Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan in relation to free public transport.
Mr Ryan said any increase in passenger numbers if public transport was made free “would largely be achieved by reductions in active travel and an increased level of unnecessary trips”.
Ms Smith asked the Taoiseach if the minister’s response was the Government’s position and if he rejected “the idea of free public transport because it leads to an increase of unnecessary trips”.
The Dublin South Central TD also asked Mr Varadkar whether he believed journeys undertaken by people entitled to free public transport, such as those on social welfare or older people, are “also currently unnecessary trips”.
Ms Smith said research referenced by Mr Ryan had not been made available and added she could provide “six or seven other pieces of other research that show the benefits of free public transport as a climate and social measure”.
In response, Mr Varadkar said he hadn’t seen Mr Ryan’s response and “can’t comment on it directly”.
“I wouldn’t be overly concerned about unnecessary trips to be honest, I don’t think many people are going around on buses and trains just for the craic,” he said.
“But there would be genuine problems with free public transport; cost and capacity. We could see capacity being overloaded, that wouldn’t be an advantage to anyone and secondly, there is an issue of cost.
“We want to invest additional money in public transport in new services, not just making existing services less expensive, but we have reduced public transport fares in Ireland and it has been successful in the number of people using public transport and that should be noted too.”
