Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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20. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if the Government intends to continue to implement reduced fares on public transport across the State; if any consideration has been given to extending that reduction or moving to providing fare-free public transport; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10461/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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As you know Deputy, a number of fare initiatives were introduced in 2022. This is in line with this Government’s responsibility to encourage modal shift and to benefit public transport passengers. These initiatives, such as the 20% average fare reduction on PSO services and the Young Adult Card on PSO and participating commercial services, will continue until the end of 2023.

Enhancing and expanding our public transport services provision across the country is a firm commitment of this Government. To support this objective, in Budget 2023, I secured €563m of funding for PSO and Local Link services provided by State operators and under contract by the NTA this year.

As the Deputy will be aware, the PSO programme represents a significant expenditure of taxpayers' money, and funding has increased in recent years to cater for additional services and growing capacity. The total cost of providing the existing level of PSO services this year is estimated to be in the order of €1.2bn. Research has shown that, to fund a fully free public transport system, without accounting for the likely increased level of passenger demand, an additional €540m in Exchequer funding would be required at a minimum.

Further, that same research tells us that any increase in public transport demand due to free fares would largely be achieved by reductions in active travel and an increased level of unnecessary trips. Ultimately then, free fares would not substantially boost the sustainability of the transport system, primarily because passenger demand is much more sensitive to levels of service provision than it is to pricing. Budget 2023 is therefore focussed on the existing fare initiatives and alternative policies of a similar cost to improve service provision, to deliver maximum benefit for all passengers.