Ballybay to Carrickmacross Bus Link Named Top Priority as Councillor Says Monaghan Public Transport Is "Not Good Enough"

A Ballybay councillor has said Monaghan would have "third world" public transport if it were not for Local Link, and wants a bus connection between Ballybay and Carrickmacross made the county's top priority. Fine Gael's Sean Gilliland raised the matter at the October meeting of Monaghan County Council last Monday and spoke to Northern Sound about it on Friday, 9 October.

Cllr Gilliland said the current "deflated" state of public transport in Monaghan is "not good enough". He pointed to students struggling to get to college now that third-level terms have resumed, with growing numbers attending the Monaghan and Cavan Institutes and DkIT in Dundalk, and to people who need to reach hospitals for operations and appointments. A Ballybay to Carrickmacross route, he said, would let Ballybay people link up with the services that run on to Dublin.

A route that used to exist

The councillor has been pressing the case for months. According to the minutes of the Ballybay-Clones Municipal District meeting held at Aughnamullen GAA on 20 April, he told colleagues that Collins Coaches once ran the Ballybay-Carrickmacross route through Lough Egish, but handed it back to the National Transport Authority (NTA) because a 50-seater coach on that road did not pay. The understanding, he said, was that Local Link would take it over on a smaller scale. Instead, there is no service for Lough Egish and people have to rely on taxis.

The same minutes record a written reply from Local Link stating plainly that "there are currently no plans to introduce a regular public transport service" to Lough Egish. Cathaoirleach Cllr Sinead Flynn and Cllr Richard Truell both said they were disappointed the village had been left out.

When Local Link Cavan-Monaghan manager Padraic Smyth attended the district's May meeting in Smithboro Community Hall, Cllr Gilliland told him many people heading to hospital appointments in Dublin were hiring taxis every week. Mr Smyth said pre-Covid passenger numbers would help, along with staff travel data from Lough Egish Food Park and Grove Turkeys, to build a business case. It was agreed that Cllr Flynn and the acting Director of Services, Nial O'Connor, would work with him on what the NTA would need to see.

Upgrades waiting on funding

Elsewhere in the district, the picture is mixed. Mr Smyth told the May meeting that Smithboro and Rockcorry are both in the NTA's Connecting Ireland programme and are due service upgrades. Rockcorry has a good service but nothing at 9am, he said, while Smithboro's bus times do not suit people, with a fix expected "not in 2026 but hopefully in 2027". He also said the five-year plan behind these improvements has been pushed out for another five years because of a lack of resources.

An earlier written answer to councillors said implementation depends on Department of Transport funding, with the department and the NTA still in talks on funding the public service obligation bus programme generally, so no date could be given.

For now, Ballybay's main scheduled link is Local Link's MN2 route between Castleblayney, Ballybay and Monaghan Town, which runs several times a day. Lough Egish has only a once-a-week door-to-door service, the CM517W from Latton via Lough Egish to Ballybay. Mr Smyth has advised anyone unsure what is available to ring the Local Link office in Clones with their Eircode, and to report unmet needs to the NTA.