Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway set to open brand-new depot
01/12/2025
In operation since 2009, Co Galway, Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway offers its customers a professional and personal experience. Irish Trucker touched base with Gerry Fahy himself to hear all about this thriving bus hire service out west, including its origins, excellent fleet and move to a new depo in the town of Tuam.
Business is good these days at Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway and the plan for the company’s owner and founder, along with the entire team in Barnaderg outside of Tuam, is to try and keep things that way for the foreseeable future.
Operating with 18 full-time staff and 30 vehicles in its fleet, the company’s ethos is to provide a bus hire service that is comfortable and relaxed, meaning that its customers safely arrive at their destination on time, every time.
The genesis of the business dates back to 2002 when Gerry first got his hackney license and things took off from there, with his son Shane coming back onboard with the company two years ago having had a five-year stint driving coaches for Bus Eireann in Galway.
Irish Trucker caught up with Gerry recently to discuss the ins and outs of the business and what he feels separates it from the competition out there.
“Our big thing here is school transport, of course, and we do an awful lot of work for Ability West here in Galway. We provide bus services for them for their centres for special needs,” he outlined.
“We would do a lot of wheel chair accessibility. Most of our work would be coming out of Bus Eireann for school transport.”
Before setting up Gerry Fahy Bus Hire as a company, the Galway native’s background had been in engineering and he worked in welding and fabrication.
He spent 18 years working as a Machine Operator, as well as in maintenance, in a factory in Tuam before his interest was piqued in hackney services “by pure chance”, as he put it.
“A guy that worked with me in the factory stopped working in there at weekends and then I asked him what he was at and he told me that it was driving a hackney for a guy in Ballinrobe. I asked him what it was like and he said ‘You’d really enjoy it. Why don’t you come down some weekend and I’ll show you the ropes?’. So I did.
“I went down with him a few weeks later on a Saturday evening and stayed in the minibus with him picking up and dropping off. The following week, I applied for my hackney license on our own private car here in the house, got it and started handing out a few business cards locally.
“The rest is history. I think after about three months, we went from a car to a seven-seater and the demand was very good. After about another three or four months, I bought a Toyota Hiace, which was a year old at the time, and it was one of the best investments I ever, ever made. In all the buses that I ever bought, it was the best I ever bought. It never came off the road.
“With that, I bought a year-old Ford Transit which was 16-seater. I did my operator's license and then I just went from there. I left the factory then because we were too busy at this, and during the week I used to operate out of Galway, out of a hackney office in Galway on Mondays through Thursdays.
“We would be ferrying students and all that in Galway and then I used to work the weekends here, and it just grew it from there.”
It was around 2009 that Gerry would land his first contract with Bus Eireann.
Back during that time, the company’s Managing Director explained that getting contract work with the state-owned bus and coach operator “was nearly impossible”.
Gerry said he saw Bus Eireann as “kind of a closed shop” back then, but, in specialising in wheelchair accessibility for special needs passengers and hospital and medical appointments, his company would go on to secure a contract with Bus Eireann and are happy to report that they have been working with them ever since.
Fast-forward to today and you could argue that business has never been better at Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway.
“Business is booming, but our biggest drawback at the moment is drivers and I think that's the same with everybody,” said the company’s founder.
“We have 30 odd vehicles here, but we wouldn’t have them all on the road now. We would have them all on the road if we could get the drivers.
“Drivers are the big thing. This ‘Over 70’ thing is killing everyone. The other side to that as well is there’s too many rules and regulations. The RSA’s impact on it has made it difficult to get drivers as well.”
The most recent additions to the 30-strong fleet in Barnaderg include two 2025 Ford Transit mini buses and there are two more brand-new ones ordered for the start of next year, which will be adapted for wheelchair use.
“We’re looking at the possibility of going down the road of the new (Mercedes-Benz) Sprinters as well, but the problem there is we can put two Transits on the road for the same price as a brand-new Sprinter,” Gerry surmised.
He added: “Volkswagen Crafters and Transits would be our big thing. I’ve always favoured the Crafter over the Sprinter, believe it or not. With the Transits, I would have had an older fleet of Transits now and I loved the 2005, 2006 ones up the way because they were just unbreakable.
“You had a part anywhere for them and they could be fixed in minutes. The new stuff now we’re getting worried about because it’s scary the amount of stuff that’s in them.”
So, all of that considered, the clear question to ask is what has been the secret behind Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway’s secret to success to date?
How has a small start-up, which essentially got up and running with one taxi, grown into a leading bus hire service out west which has an excellent reputation amongst its customers?
“Well, I suppose they're used to us and we’re reliable,” Gerry stated.
“We don't really do an awful lot of late nights or weekends. We do the odd Hen Party or Stag Party, but we tend to stay away from anything that has to do with alcohol or stuff like that, because it's just a nightmare.
“Even though some of our fleet over the years might have been a little bit older than everybody else's, our biggest thing here is maintenance. We're big on maintenance.
“We have our own fitter here and each job is to make sure that everything is in here, that everything is up to date on DOEs and stuff like that and, if it needs it, it gets it. Even if there's a doubt, we change the parts.
“So it’s reliability. As regards to issues on the side of the road breaking down or anything, it just doesn't happen. We eliminate that if we can.
“Now, it has happened once or twice but, over the years, we have a good record there and all our vehicles are kept well maintained and cleaned. All of our drivers are very, very well respected around the area as well. They would be all very obliging towards customers.”
At the time of writing, the company was gearing up to open and move into its new depot in Tuam.
A move that had been a while in the making, it coincides with perhaps the busiest time of the year for Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway as the kids go back for the start of the school year.
“We have a lot of changes coming up. We're moving our depot into the town of Tuam, so that’s going to be a huge move for us,” Gerry explained.
“We signed the contract, so we should be moving in on September 1st. That would be a big step for us and it has its pros and it has its cons as well. Like it's going to be further away from base here, but we're still going to keep the base here as well, of course. So just more space and it's more central to a lot of our work as well.”
Sounds like a win-win situation.
Gerry Fahy Bus Hire Galway
Barnaderg,
Tuam,
Co Galway
Mobile: 086 155 9555
Email: [email protected]
First published in Irish Trucker magazine November/December 2025, Vol 28-6
