2026-07-02

Ireland's largest summer festival will take place this weekend at Newbridge House and Farm in Donabate. The Flavours of Fingal is in its 14th year. It has been a hugely successful festival. It is one that I really enjoy going to every year. Many of my neighbours and people from my community also really look forward to it. It is a fantastic opportunity for local vendors such as cheese makers and craftspeople to showcase their wares. It is a big event in their calendar and of huge importance to our local economy, as well as just being a good day out for families and people in general. Between 65,000 and 75,000 people attend, which makes it one of the biggest summer festivals. Part of the success of Flavours of Fingal has been the shuttle bus service that operates all around the Fingal area. It brings people from Rush, Lusk, Skerries, Balbriggan, Swords and the surrounding areas, and means they can get to and from the festival with ease. I do not expect the Minister of State to be familiar with every aspect of north County Dublin. Donbate is situated on a peninsula, which means one road in and one road out. It is very tight. What we do not want to see is people having a bad experience on their way to the festival. Also, from a sustainability and environmental perspective, I am scratching my head trying to understand why this money was pulled. I would love to know where the money was reallocated to, but more importantly, I really want people to be able to get to Flavours of Fingal easily and to get home easily. I know the vendors and the people who are there to showcase their products want that as well. This is a huge event and a huge day in their calendar. It is a day when people get the chance not just to make money, but also to showcase local talent and local produce. Thousands of extra cars on the road means extra pollution, as the Minister of State knows, but it also means that people are less likely to get in. It is a real bottleneck. We have had trouble with traffic there, which is part of the reason the shuttle bus service was such a success. It is fine for people who live along the train line. The Minister of State will know there is a train line that runs right through my constituency. They will be grand because they are getting the train anyway. However, the vast majority of people who attend Flavours of Fingal do not live on the train line. As a result, they will find themselves in a situation where they have to travel by other means. Added to this is the eye-watering cost of parking a car, which is €40. That is a lot. If someone is bringing a couple of kids, they will want to have a few bob to buy them an ice cream and to fully experience all the delights of the show, but they cannot add €40 on top of that. It is a real ask for families. We really want the Flavours of Fingal to continue to be the success story that it is, but without the shuttle buses, there is going to be traffic chaos. I do not want our big summer festival getting a name as a place that people do not want to go to because of traffic congestion. I am not sure what can be done at this late stage. This matter raised previously in the Dáil by my colleague Deputy Ann Graves. The Taoiseach told her, "I will talk to people to see what can be done there.” He also said, “I will talk to the Minister and see what can be done.” Perhaps the Minister of State has a message from the Taoiseach for us.

I thank the Deputy for raising this important topic, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy O’Brien. I would like to clarify that the Minister has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport, but neither the Minister nor his officials are involved in the day-to-day operation of public transport services. I am familiar with Loughshinny, Donabate, Rush and Portrane. My grandfather was the sergeant at Rush back in the 1940s, and my mother grew up there and went to school in Dublin.

In that case, the Minister of State will know what I am talking about.

The National Transport Authority, NTA, has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public transport services nationally, working with the public transport operators that deliver the services and have responsibility for day-to-day operational matters. In this regard, while it is the NTA's priority to provide scheduled public transport services on the Transport for Ireland, TFI, network, it works with event organisers, operators, local authorities and An Garda Síochána to provide additional transport supports where possible to do so. Its focus regarding events is providing additional transport to support large-scale events where required and where operators are in a position to provide additional services. In the context of this specific event, Flavours of Fingal, which is arranged by Fingal County Council in Newbridge House in Donabate for this Saturday and Sunday, 4 and 5 July, the council has provided a private bus shuttle operation each year of this event, which was run by Marathon Coaches to Blanchardstown, Rush, Balbriggan, Swords and the Naul. However, this year, the NTA was informed that Fingal County Council withdrew from providing this bus shuttle service, which is outside the control of the NTA. This was a decision taken by the council, and it was fully removed from the NTA. The NTA’s priority this weekend will be to cover major events at Croke Park and the Aviva Stadium. If capacity on the rail network allows, Irish Rail will support Flavours of Fingal. The bus operators do not have any capacity to put on additional services to Donabate because they will be servicing other, larger events in the city centre. As the Deputy rightly said, there will be between 65,000 and 75,000 people there, so a shuttle bus would be needed. It has to be noted that all TFl operators, including Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead Ireland, have just serviced nine concerts in Malahide Castle, which concluded on Tuesday, 30 June, last, in circumstances where they all provided significant additional resources for each of the concerts in the series. The NTA is not in a position to provide any further services at this time due to resource availability. The NTA has a dedicated team that attends pre-event meetings in order to plan what additional transport can be provided. Co-ordinating transport across events in different local authority areas can be very challenging, especially at this time of year. For example, last week there were large events at the Aviva Stadium, Croke Park, Malahide and Marlay Park, all on the same day, which put constraints on services. Therefore, the challenge facing the NTA and the transport operators is the number of large-scale events being scheduled concurrently. The resources simply are not available to support them all because support for such events requires vehicles, drivers, support staff, site personnel and security teams, all of which have limited availability due to the normal workload associated with the scheduled services. The Department of Transport requested that the NTA be included as a prescribed body in the draft regulations under the Planning and Development Act. This should assist the NTA in working with local authorities, event organisers and transport operators to ensure a more co-ordinated approach to event licensing and management of transport to and from events. In addition to the specific transport provided for events, as part of the BusConnect's network redesign, the NTA has introduced 15 24-hour bus services across the city, significantly enhancing late night and early morning travel options. This has allowed more people to avail of public transport services. In addition, there are 12 Nitelink services running from the city centre to suburbs on Friday and Saturday nights, providing extra capacity during late-night demand periods.

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. He will forgive me for saying it is an incredibly disappointing reply. Donabate is in the constituency of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. I am sure his constituents will be very interested to hear that the NTA has other priorities, including Croke Park, Lansdowne Road stadium and Marlay Park, none of which is in Fingal. I appreciate that the Minister of State is taking this on behalf of the Minister. The Minister told us about Nitelink but he should know that Flavours of Fingal is over long before the Nitelink buses start running. In any event, it would have been of absolutely no use to people going to Donabate for what is one of the biggest events of the summer, attended by between 65,000 and 75,000 people. My concern is that there will be traffic congestion, in the first instance, and a reduction in numbers. I have had contact from quite a number of people who told me they look forward to going to Flavours of Fingal and they and their kids travel on the shuttle bus because it is convenient and means they do not have to worry about parking. It is disappointing that the attitude of the Minister is that people can pay €40 for parking and other major events are on, which are more important. I am sure his constituents would like to feel like they were something of a priority for him. They will get that message loud and clear. Will the Minister of State take back to the Minister a request that engagement starts now to ensure there is additional capacity through the NTA, or whoever it is that has to provide it, to ensure that people can get to and from Flavours of Fingal using public transport? Effectively, and contrary to what the Government has told us about its climate action targets, people will be forced into their cars, which is regrettable.

I assure the Deputy that the NTA meets all public transport operators on a regular basis and advises event promoters about what, if any, additional public transport services are available for particular events. Some events are organised without any input or involvement from the NTA. As a result, the authority may not be aware of them until a very late stage. The NTA suggested that there may be a need for more scrutiny of transport availability when licensing such events, in particular when different local authorities licence events to take place concurrently or in close proximity to each other. The Department has ensured significant collaboration is taking place with the NTA and operators so that sufficient public transport capacity is provided for major events. Again, I am not sure whether the Minister has a huge role in this. His job is to bring the NTA and various stakeholders together. For example, in the last week in respect of public transport we discussed Malahide, the Aviva stadium, Marlay Park and Croke Park. There have been many events in the city and the NTA has said it is difficult to service all of them. The NTA is cognisant of the increased demand such events bring and is working to establish a co-ordinated framework that balances meeting demand and efficient co-ordination within existing resources. However, decisions by event organisers, such as in the case of Flavours of Fingal, is completely outside the control of the NTA and Department. There has been huge growth in public transport use in recent years. The Government remains committed to ensuring that public transport continues to be affordable, reliable and an attractive option for all passengers, including those attending concerts and events. I will take the views of the Deputy back to the Minister. Despite the council briefing elected officials, I have been told they were informed by management that hosting the full-scale Flavours of Fingal represented a significant cost to the council and cancelling the sprawling regional shuttle network was a direct measure to contain mounting festival expenses. It was stated that the events, transport and overall scale were being adjusted to free up funding for events elsewhere in Fingal following a request from other local councillors who wanted the festival budget to be distributed more evenly across the entire county rather than heavily concentrated on a single flagship event. The fight is never what the fight is about.