Irish Examiner View: Let’s reject failed ideas on markets for public services

We have to stop using the economics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to fix our housing and health service problems

This week, Bus Éireann announced that Expressway services linking Galway, Limerick, Cork, and Dublin will end next year. File photo: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

Two years ago this month the private bus company Greyhound ended its services in Canada’s western provinces. The bus links for dozens of remote, soon-to-be snow-bound towns were axed. 

Bus routes well-used for nearly a century are no more. A 41% fall in passenger numbers since 2010, driven by migration to cities, the rise of no-frills airlines, as well as increased car ownership made those closures inevitable. Just as those changes seem all too familiar, though Covid-19 homeworking may slow that ebbing tide, many Canadians see the decline of bus services as a metaphor for an ever-quieter rural Canada.