Community groups across the capital are to benefit from an initiative by Dublin Bus to plough money back into the city, it emerged today.
The Dublin Bus Community Support Programme Awards will see €254,000 granted to 154 Dublin charities and non-profit groups to help children, the elderly, disabled people and boost sports projects.
Dr John Lynch, CIE's chairman, said: "We look after carrying people from one community to another so we felt that we should put something back. The second thing is there are people who don't collect money after their tickets and we use that money as part and parcel of putting the money back into the community."
CIE chairman Dr John Lynch
Over 154 organisations have been chosen from among over 1,000 groups who applied for funding in the second year of the support programme.
Some of the groups to benefit include Rainbow Ireland, which works with young people coping with divorce, separation or bereavement, Headway, which aids people affected by brain injuries and a Garda Youth Diversion Project which aims to engage young people who have been in trouble with the law.
Former Irish soccer international, Niall Quinn, a patron of the support programme, said initiatives which ploughed money back into the communities were vitally important.
"Dublin Bus are not only giving money back into the community but I hope they are giving a message that the bus is there for them," he said.
"That is the local touch that Dublin Bus wants to get the message across that they are there, it is the local bus for the local people, it is their bus. To kind of build up the trust with the people, especially the young people with the history of vandalism on buses and stuff like that.
The non-profit groups will be awarded various amounts of funding at a ceremony in Dublin's Jury's Hotel on September 1st.
PA