Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome to the House and I thank him for being here to respond to my Commencement matter. When I submitted this matter, I asked that the Minister engage with the NTA on implementing fairer fares for north County Dublin. The fairer fares scheme has been rolled out to some extent and I know more work has to be done on it but I am speaking specifically about the two stations of Balbriggan and Skerries. They are in the Dublin commuter zone and all other stations in Dublin are in the Dublin city zone. This is a significant difference. In the Dublin city zone, the €2 Leap card fare gets people to Connolly Station. The same trip from Balbriggan or Skerries to Connolly Station is significantly more expensive. From Balbriggan, it is €3.90 and from Skerries it is €2.90. This is a big difference. When we think about it, it is €20 a week and more than €1,000 a year. This is what commuters from Balbriggan and Skerries pay compared to people travelling from the next neighbouring stations of Rush and Lusk, who pay the €2 Leap card fare.

The fairer fares scheme has been good for other parts of the country. Passengers from Drogheda have recently seen a significant decrease in their fares. Fair play to them and I have no complaints about this but we are in a situation where we are trying to encourage people to take public transport and fares are being increased for commuters from Balbriggan and Skerries. It is not fair, particularly when we take into account that people are paying for parking at these train stations also, as there are very poor links between the residential areas and the train stations. This adds to the cost of going to work.

Balbriggan and Skerries are the only two Dublin stations that are not in the Dublin city zone. The people there feel very aggrieved. Skerries and Balbriggan are in Dublin, yet they are in the same zone as other stations that are not in County Dublin. This is not fair. Will the Minister of State engage with the NTA to look at this and revisit it? The commuters in Balbriggan and Skerries are really after getting a raw deal with this scheme. Other parts of the country have vastly reduced train fares and bus fares. These commuters are caught in the middle.

The Government has done a lot of work to reduce fares for people, which is to be commended, and more people are using public transport, but when we have this situation where commuters pay over €1,000 more than their neighbours in the next town, it is not fair. I would like to hear the response of the Minister of State to this. He will probably tell me the roll-out of the fairer fares programme has been a great success. I acknowledge that it has been a good success in other parts but the commuters of Balbriggan and Skerries are caught by this. They are not seeing the benefit of it. They feel very aggrieved with the big disparity in their train fare of €3.90 as opposed to €2. The Minister of State can do the maths on doing this trip twice a day, five days a week, over 52 weeks in the year. It is a significant difference. Will the Minister of State respond and engage with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the NTA to see whether there can be a workaround for the commuters of Skerries and Balbriggan?