{"id":485255,"date":"2026-06-05T22:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485255\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:56:09","slug":"cork-has-68-electric-buses-but-no-charging-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485255\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork has 68 electric buses but no charging points"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">Cork has received 68 buses from Limerick since 2020, and is set to receive 42 more, as delays to electric-bus charging infrastructure prevent the use of new buses in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The National Transport Authority (NTA) has been purchasing only electric buses in the last six years, but Cork has no <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41782814.html\">charging infrastructure<\/a> so it cannot use them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Between 2020 and 2024, Cork received 49 buses from Limerick,  The Echo revealed in April last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The NTA has confirmed that 19 further plug-in hybrid, double-decker buses have been \u201ccascaded\u201d from Limerick to Cork since the start of 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A spokesperson for the NTA said in April 2025 that Cork\u2019s Capwell bus depot was too busy to allow depot electrification works to take place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Instead, a temporary bus depot is being developed to allow buses to move out of Capwell, so it can be electrified, a depot the spokesperson said at the time was \u201con course to be completed in Q1 2026\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The depot, on the former Tata Steel facility within the Port of Cork\u2019s Tivoli Industrial Estate, which can only be used until the end of 2030, was originally to be up and running in the first half of 2025 before a completion date of March 2026 was set in January 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Last December, the NTA told  The Echo that \u201csome delays\u201d had been experienced, but that it was anticipated that the depot would become operational in April 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Costs have also increased from \u20ac8m in original media reports in 2023 to \u20ac17m in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Last month, a Bus \u00c9ireann spokesperson said that they anticipate Tivoli will become operational \u201cin the coming months\u201d, but that no estimated completion date was available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Limerick\u2019s bus depot was electrified by 2024, and the city has been using electric buses since then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A further 42 hybrid buses are planned to be sent to Cork by the end of 2027, the NTA said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The information was provided to Sinn F\u00e9in TD Thomas Gould, who questioned the NTA on the amount of \u201csecond-hand\u201d buses being transferred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The NTA pushed back on the \u201csecond-hand\u201d label, saying: \u201cThese modern, attractive, and low-emission buses were first introduced in to passenger service as recently as 2022, and offer high levels of passenger comfort and accessibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cThe opening of the Tivoli temporary bus depot (doubling bus depot capacity in Cork) and the forthcoming electrification of Capwell bus depot will, thereafter, enable new battery-electric buses to be allocated to Cork.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Mr Gould expressed concern that delays to Cork city buses were worsened by the fact that \u201cwe\u2019re relying on hand-me-down buses\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe Government haven\u2019t bought a new diesel-only bus since 2019. That would be fine if there was somewhere to charge electric buses. There isn\u2019t. We were told that Tivoli would be open by the start of this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIt\u2019s now June and we still don\u2019t have an opening date.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork has received 68 buses from Limerick since 2020, and is set to receive 42 more, as delays&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29095,72,79,61,60],"class_list":["post-485255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-busconnects","tag-business","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}