Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to the details on that. The Deputy is right about the first point he made in that private coach operators have a critical role in the provision of public transport. I regard them as part of the public transport system. Prior to Covid they were expanding widely across the country, and very successful new routes were being created. Covid has obviously put a real spanner in the works but a lot of the operations kept going through the Covid period and we kept supporting them to do so.

The lower-fare card to give a 50% reduction to those under 24 will be introduced. It will take slightly longer to introduce it for private operators but it will be made available for them. It has been more difficult with the 20% fare reduction because we do not have the mechanism to monitor, manage and audit fare collection. We do not even set the prices pertaining to the private operators. I have met the coach operator organisations on this and recognise it is an issue. While there are no immediate, easy solutions, we will determine what we can do. We want the private operators to succeed just as much as anyone.

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