Dublin Bus has announced that it will no longer issue a 'refund due' receipt for customers who pay in excess of their bus fare.

Passengers who received such receipts were entitled to collect their change from the Dublin Bus head office on O'Connell Street.

However, the company announced that this would be discontinued from 9 September.

It said customers would instead be issued with an 'extra payment' receipt, which will be non-redeemable.

Dublin Bus also said any extra change as a result of over-payments would go towards financing improved services, as well as funding the Community Spirit Awards initiative.

The removal of the refunding service for passengers is, according to Dublin Bus, in line with a plan by the National Transport Authority that aims to move to cashless operations on all buses under the BusConnects programme.

The Leap Card is now used on more than 70% of public transport journeys in the greater Dublin area.

The National Transport Authority estimates it will take another two years for Dublin's public transport to be cashless.

From the RTÉ Archives

Dublin Bus said the Leap Card is at least 20% cheaper and more convenient for passengers to use.

It said: "Due to the introduction of Leap Card, the total amount of change received from overpayments has decreased by 63% over the last five years.

"The amount of change which has been reclaimed by customers has also decreased year on year and in 2017, 10.4% of this change was reclaimed.

"In 2017, the unclaimed change value was approximately €600,000. These trends have continued into 2018."