Fare cut delay sparks Newbridge protest

UP TO 50 people gathered on Friday evening (12 July) at Newbridge Railway Station to protest the delay in promised fare reductions by Irish Rail that would see the cost of travelling into Dublin drop by nearly a half (45 per cent).

The protest came about after a major delay to the roll out of the new Dublin Commuter Zone fares which was uncovered last week by a Newbridge commuter, and raised in the Seanad at a transport committee meeting.

At the committee meeting last week (10 July), the National Transport Authority's (NTA) Ann Graham and her colleagues stated that the rollout of the new Dublin commuter zone, and the subsequent reduced fares would be delayed to “Q1 2025”, from the original expected date of September 2024.

“The reason provided was down to a contractor working for Irish rail who is providing the technical solutions at stations to facilitate leap card use in the new zone,” said Jennifer Caffrey, one of the organisers of the protest.

“Questions were asked of the NTA whether they could temporarily reduce fares between September and January the answer was a resounding no,” she said.

“As a resident of south Kildare we welcomed the announcement of the new fare structure in 2023 which outlined the new Dublin Commuter Zone that will extend to Kildare town and include a fairer distance-based fare calculation and multimode fare capping.

“In January this year with the publication of the fares determination we were advised that roll out of the reduced fares and the formal introduction of the new zone (Dublin Commuter Zone) would not be in place until Q3 2024 due to technical tasks at stations that needed to be completed as Leap cards would be used at these stations going forward to charge fares.

“Ministers and senators were briefed by the NTA three weeks ago, and the September date was reiterated at that point.

“Last week when questioned in the Dáil, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan again mentioned September as the date for a roll out of the new Dublin Commuter zone.

“However, a resident of Newbridge received a response from the NTA following an email enquiry on the implementation date stating that implementation has been pushed to January 2025.

“A delay of this nature is unacceptable, as students, workers and families have made life choices, budgets, and taken up employment and college places based on these fare reductions of up to due in September.

“Another issues uncovered at last week’s meeting was the fact Newbridge doesn’t feature on the list for roll-out of town busses despite it being a town of over 25,000 residents,” she said.

“My family want to come to visit us from Dublin. They have mobility issues and, from the train station, a taxi is their only option to get to our house. They have waited up to an hour to get a taxi, along with the cost of the return journey it's putting them off coming to visit us. I didn't think a town of this size would not have a town bus".

Ms Caffrey was joined in her ire by public representatives of all hues including Senator Fiona O’Loughlin.

Senator O'Loughlin said the news of the delay had taken elected members by suprise while the department of transport had not been alerted before it went public.

“The casual nature in which this delay was communicated was also unacceptable in my view. I queried the delays and expressed the huge frustration and the anger in our area to this delay. 

"This lack of delivery, and a lack of internal accountability to deliver on Government direction is unacceptable in my view.”