Concerns have been raised about poor public transport connectivity in North Clare.
It’s understood the 350 service which serves Ennistymon to Ennis has failed to arrive in the town at its scheduled times in recent days.
It’s prompted calls for a review into Bus Eireann’s operations in the area.
Chair of the North Clare Labour Party and member of the Save Our Shannon group, Denis Vaughan. says the region is being forgotten about when it comes to public transport.
Bus Eireann statement:
Bus Éireann, Ireland’s national bus service, operates the most extensive public transport network in the country, playing an essential role connecting communities across the country.
Last year Bus Éireann, funded by the National Transport Authority through the Government’s July Stimulus, announced significant enhancements to Clare services and timetables. The service improvements in Clare included a new Sunday service of two round trips between Scariff/Limerick on Route 345 as well as enhancements linking Kilkee directly to Doonbeg and Lahinch by public transport for the first time on Route 336.
Bus Éireann is currently working with the National Transport Authority on upgrading and improving bus stop infrastructure nationwide. These improvements across the country include County Clare where it is planned to replace and/or repair a number of bus poles on a rolling basis over the coming months.
Bus Éireann operates Routes 333, 336 & 350 on behalf of the National Transport Authority (NTA) and has carried almost 50,000 passengers on these services since the beginning of this year. There have been minimal issues with cancelled services on these routes in the last six weeks based on our records. If the specific date of the reported cancellation is available, we will investigate in more detail. We encourage customers to make complaints to our Bus Éireann Customer Care department who can be contacted on LoCall 1850 836 611 or by email: CustomerCare@buseireann.ie.
On occasion it is possible that a service may not operate due to unforeseen operational issues, when this does happen every effort is made to keep customers informed and minimise delays. County Clare is a major tourist destination and has seen a significant increase in “staycation” tourist traffic over the summer. This increase in road traffic volumes impacts on the operating speed of our services and has impacted on the punctuality of some of our services. Of course, we are always working to improve this and the punctuality performance of all routes is kept under constant review and our aim is to continually improve performance.
