Gardaí issued more than 6,000 fixed-charge notices to drivers unlawfully using bus lanes last year, a 28 per cent increase on 2023.
Dublin and Cork city had the largest rise in fixed-charge notices issued for this offence last year, with 4,326 issued across Dublin Garda regions alone. This is a 34 per cent jump on the 3,217 notices issued across the county the year before.
In the first three months of this year, more than 2,100 such penalty notices have been issued across Dublin, signalling potential for a further significant rise in bus lane enforcement this year.
Drivers in Cork city were hit with 690 bus lane infringement penalty notices last year, up 34 per cent from 2023 when 515 were given.
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In Limerick, 590 fixed charged penalty notices were issued to drivers unlawfully in bus lanes in 2024, a small increase from 2023’s figure of 545.
Across the State there were 6,127 fines issued for unlawful parking or driving in bus lanes last year, up from 4,783 in 2023, An Garda Síochána figures showed. In the first three months of this year, gardaí issued 2,663 penalty notices nationwide.
A fixed-charge penalty notice allows an alleged offender to pay a fine within a set period to avoid prosecution.
A spokeswoman for An Garda Síochána said the “increases in bus lane enforcement are primarily, as could be expected, in the large urban areas of Dublin, Cork and Limerick”.
“Pro-active policing plans, endeavouring to increase high visibility patrols, has resulted in more policing activity and therefore increases in fixed-charge notices and other summary offences,” she said.
In April last year Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a directive to all members to conduct 30 minutes of high-visibility roads policing operations during each tour of duty, she said, adding that this approach was based on a Swedish policing model.
“The aim is to increase Garda visibility, which has the effect of moderating driver and road-user behaviour. Increased enforcement is an added benefit,” the spokeswoman said.
The 48 fixed charge penalty notices last year issued in Galway last year was a decrease from the 74 in 2023. Laois, Offaly, Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim recorded fewer than 10 fixed charge penalty notices for bus lane infringements in each of 2023 and 2024.
Garda “mobility devices” provided to every member contain an app enabling gardaí to quickly issue fixed-charge notices. In 2024, more than 159,000 such notices were issued on mobility devices for a range of offences.
Green Party spokesman on transport, Dublin City councillor Feljin Jose, said the Dublin figures were “a drop in the ocean when it comes to the actual level of encroachment in bus lanes”.
He said further enforcement should not necessarily require gardaí “standing on every corner” as ”countries around Europe and the US use bus-mounted cameras” that can detect and video vehicles in bus lanes.
“The technology for all of that exists, the legislation should exist, but we’re still not getting the implementation,” he said.
A Labour councillor for Cork City, John Maher, said the area’s figures would be much higher “with more enforcement”.
“In general, people don’t obey the rules of the road when it comes to use of bus lanes”, he said.
“While the numbers are improving, they are not a reality of what is happening each day on the ground and we need better enforcement.”
Damian Boylan, a Fine Gael councillor in Cork city, said the figures for Cork were evidence of “active enforcement”.
“That kind of consistent policing is important. For public transport to function properly, the public must understand that blocking bus lanes isn’t just an inconvenience to drivers and passengers – it’s an offence.”
He said he supported the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to “ensure consistency and reduce over-reliance on gardaí having to be physically present at all times”.
