The Government was “not in a position to fund everything forever”, said Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Thursday after the National Transport Authority (NTA) confirmed bus and rail fares were to increase by 15 per cent on average.

The NTA maintained its new national fare structure would allow for greater standardisation in the amounts people pay to use buses and trains countrywide, particularly regarding children.

However, it is also clear that it marked the end of a policy introduced four years ago aimed at assisting the public with cost-of-living pressures after the Russian invasion of Ukraine by reducing public transport prices.

Commuters to face increased fares on buses and trains

In May 2022, then minister for transport Eamon Ryan announced that fares on subsidised services in the Greater Dublin Area, including those operated by Dublin Bus, Luas, Go Ahead Ireland and Irish Rail, would be reduced by an average of 20 per cent.

A key element was a cut in the Transport for Ireland (TFI) 90-minute fare, which provided unlimited citywide travel using various modes of transport over 90 minutes. The cost of this was reduced to €2.

On Thursday, however, the NTA said the TFI-90 fare will rise again, to €2.30 from early next year.

The price changes announced apply to Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Irish Rail, Luas, Go Ahead Ireland and TFI Local Link, which receive a Government subsidy.

In essence, apart from purely commercial routes such as some Expressway long-distance journeys, most public transport needs a State subvention.

The new changes apply to cash and Leap card fares as well as weekly and monthly passes.

With fare revenue reduced after the 2022 price reductions and the level of services increasing over recent years, the amount that had to be provided by the exchequer has increased substantially.

This trend looked set to continue given rising fuel and other costs as well as growing demands for expanded routes and services.

In the background, the Department of Public Expenditure was unhappy with the growing cost of the subvention, which had risen from about €300 million in 2019 to €940 million this year.

In the run-up to the October 2025 Budget, The Irish Times reported that Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien was pushing for the retention of the lower fares against resistance from the Department of Public Expenditure, which was opposed to an indefinite price freeze.

Earlier that year, officials in the Department of Public Expenditure had told their Minister, Jack Chambers, that a balance had to be found between the exchequer annual subvention and the revenue raised by fares. “This ratio has increased substantially since 2019,” they said.

In October 2026, O’Brien indicated that prices could rise at a later date.

He said future increases to bus and train fares were not off the table and there must be a “sustainable” funding model for public transport.

On Thursday O’Brien said the new fare structure was “necessary to support continued investment in public transport, enabling the expansion of services and the delivery of key infrastructure projects”. It represented, he said, “a crucial step to expand capacity across our public transport service. This expansion will enable approximately 140 new and improved services and signals one of the most ambitious in-year investments across our flagship programmes such as Connecting Ireland and BusConnects in recent years.”

He argued that despite the 15 per cent average increase, “public transport fares in Ireland will still remain competitive by international standards”.

The NTA said that even after the rises, Dublin was “still significantly better value for single trip fares”.

However, the arguments of the Taoiseach and the Minister about the need for sustainable funding models, and the statement by NTA chief executive Anne Shaw that the price rises announced on Thursday were the first since 2018, cut little ice with the Opposition which lined up to condemn the move.

“These changes strike a careful balance between keeping public transport affordable and ensuring we can continue building a larger, more accessible and better-connected network for communities across Ireland,” said Shaw.

However, Sinn Féin junior spokesman on transport Louis O’Hara described the fare increases as “a slap in the face to people who rely on public transport”.

Aidan Farrelly of the Social Democrats said that at a time when the Government should be doing all it can to incentivise public transport use, the increases will do the exact opposite.

Ciarán Ahern of the Labour Party said the fare increases “must be stopped”.