We're happy to announce that the Government have cut annual and monthly public transport fares for the public operators by 20%. Existing ticket-holders with annual tickets will get three month extensions. This applies to the public operators: Luas, Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Go Ahead and Bus Eireann. It does not apply to Commercial Bus Operators or Ferry Operators. Details of how we are managing this for companies and employees follow below. The full details from the Government are at:
Anyone with non-refunded annual tickets with start dates from April 2021 to Mar 2022 will get a three-month extension.
- We’ll send each employee an email before the end of March about how to activate their extension.
- We’ve checked new orders with start dates from April 2022 to June 2022 and cancelled a few that overlapped with existing extended tickets. We've notified employees and HR where required.
- We’ve updated the ticket end dates for orders in our database, so that people applying for new tickets, won’t be able to apply for a new ticket with a start date before any existing extended end date.
- Reminder emails will be based on the new ticket end dates.
Fares for the public operators with ticket start dates from April 2022 onwards are cut by 20%
- We’ve updated our ticket database so all new applications will get the new fares.
- A small number of employees placed orders with ticket start dates from May to Jun 2022 with the old fares. We’ve cancelled these and let the employees know to reapply with the new fare. We’ll send a few reminders to employees to place their orders.
- The orders with a start date of April 2022 were placed with the old prices, as the new prices only came out the day before the our deadline for applications. As we have to fulfil these orders, they are being invoiced and reported on based on the old prices. However, we are ordering them with the operators based on the new cheaper prices. We will carry out an analysis to calculate the savings for each employee, and send credit notes and reports to each employer in late March to allow exceptions to be handled to refund the employees the savings.
We welcome the price reductions that the Government have put in place. We’re conscious that there may be some administration to facilitate them as described above.
Now that fares for the year have been published; we’ll be putting together updated information for employees on the savings they make from taxsaver tickets. For typical tickets; we’ll be able to advise employees how many days a week they need to travel, before their taxsaver ticket is the cheaper option. This should help companies and employees get the best value, even when employees are working with flexible arrangements.
