4 October 2021
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
The Green Party in Cork presented the Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan, with a list of complaints about the bus service to Glanmire at a meeting of Cabinet in Cork today.
Stories of poor service on the route were forwarded to Green Party councillor, Oliver Moran, by members of the Mums of Glanmire Facebook group. It follows numerous complaints to Bus Éireann about the quality of the service in recent months.
Their stories describe the bus service being regularly late or not showing up at all. Mothers describe their children having to catch the bus at 7.30am in the morning for 9.00am lectures or school. Coming home is equally difficult with buses leaving MTU at 4pm and returning to Glanmire at 7.30pm.
Green Party councillor, Oliver Moran, said a service that looked excellent on paper was not delivering for residents in reality:
“There’s palpable frustration among families who obviously want to use the service but are at their wits’ end with their experiences of it. I took the opportunity of meeting Eamon at the meeting of Cabinet in Cork this morning to put the family’s complaints directly into the Minister’s hands. The families unfortunately feel their complaints to Bus Éireann are falling on deaf ears.
“Glanmire is just 15 minutes from the city centre and has a population of 10,000 people. It’s massively car dependent and on paper this service should be really high quality, competing with the private car for convenience. In the context of the climate emergency, it’s essential that services like this not just exist on paper but are reliable and good quality in reality. I think it’s essential that Bus Éireann now respond to the complaints and outline what changes will be put in place to ensure its quality.”
