Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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101. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his Department is considering encouraging transport providers to extend public transport operating hours later into the night to facilitate the night-time economy in Dublin. [14878/26]

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I want to ask the Minister about how we can support the night time economy by seeing if he is engaging with both public and private transport providers to try to extend operating hours later into the night.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy O'Connell for raising this really important issue in terms of extending the service operating hours, BusConnects network redesign. As she is no doubt aware, it is a transformative programme of investment in our bus system aimed at improving public transport across the city by strengthening the existing system through enhanced services with high-frequency spines and new local orbital and radial roots. As part of that redesign, the NTA has introduced 15 24-hour both services across the city in recent years. That significantly enhances both late night and early morning travel options. It has allowed more people, particularly night time and shift workers, to use and avail of public transport services.

In addition to those 15 24-hour routes, we have 12 Nitelink services which run from the city centre to the suburbs on Friday and Saturday nights, providing extra capacity during peak late-night demand periods. Iarnród Éireann operates all available trains across the network daily to meet the record demand it is seeing on all routes. This is outside of required maintenance cycles to ensure fleet reliability, and any repair works which may be taking place. However, over periods such as St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas and new year, Iarnród Éireann puts on additional late-night services to accommodate passengers. I asked the company if there is any more flexibility, recognising that we do more with the buses. Fifteen 24-hour routes and 12 Nitelink routes are great and support the night-time economy. While I know we have a short window for maintenance of tracks, which we need to do for safety reasons, we might look at further weekends in the year when we could extend the rail and Luas services. They are constrained more than the buses because we have to maintain the tracks and rolling stock, but I have asked both companies if there is any other flex or other opportunities to provide additional services that bit later on certain weekends.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. I appreciate the feedback on that and that the Minister is engaging with the rail operators, Transdev and Irish Rail, about trying to extend rail services. I represent Dublin Rathdown, which is a constituency adjacent to the city centre constituencies. An awful lot of my constituents raise the point with me all the time that they would go into town more often if they knew that they could get home. We are within a distance from the city centre that it should be easily accessible and affordable. We have taxi services, but like every form of transportation, they do not suit everybody all the time. Many areas in Dublin Rathdown are quite close, and I have personally done the walk from the city centre to Stillorgan many times due to the lack of public transport. I always make sure I wear comfortable shoes. Again, that is not suitable for every person at all times, particularly in our climate. I also represent a constituency with UCD's students, and there is huge potential for them to support the night-time economy.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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Those 15 routes I referred to are up and running. They are 24-hour routes. Going back five years, we did not have any 24-hour routes. The Deputy is right that we need to support the economy. More people would go out in our city if it was easier to access. It is getting better. Of course we are looking for other opportunities for routes, with more 24-hour routes. Obviously they have to be paid for too. I mentioned in response to colleagues earlier that we have to manage our new routes and improvements to existing routes within the envelope of the PSO that we have. This issue is genuinely kept under review. I, like the Deputy, know the city well. It has bounced back post Covid but it could do with more help. Our taxi fleet has unquestionably improved. The Nitelink services exist but I have also asked the rail and Luas operators to see whether there is any additional headroom where we could provide additional times at certain periods of the year.

Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I listened to the Minister talk about the constraints in the system. It would be remiss of me not to refer to some of the communications I have received this week about our wider transportation service. Hannah was in touch with me about the No. 11 bus route in Clonskeagh. Three full buses went past her on one day, and this has happened repeatedly. She has spent hundreds of euro on taxis. Three buses went past Catherine from Leopardstown, going down the N11. In Kilternan, which is one of the fastest growing residential areas in the country, particularly in my constituency, there was a protest last Saturday, led by my colleague, Councillor Pearse Dargan, about the poor bus service there, including the L26, which should be going every 15 minutes and is actually going every 30 minutes, and the 44 service. There is a lack of connectivity between the fast-growing area of Kilternan with Dún Laoghaire and also to the Luas. I appreciate the pressures on the system.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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We have to recognise that, as our population is growing, our system is growing too. The 363.5 million public passenger journeys last year is a record number. That is a good thing and I know the Deputy fully supports that. We will look at the specific issues with the routes the Deputy mentioned. I will feed that in and I am sure the Deputy has done so already. We will always have work to do to roll out those improvements. We are ambitious as a Government to see public transport options increased for our citizens and improvements made to existing routes and new routes. We have to balance that with how we can pay for it. It is also appropriate that we do that. Things are going in the right direction. There are issues with specific routes. I have spent quite some time this morning answering questions on those. I will feed the Deputy's comments in.