When I (reluctantly) travelled with Irish Ferries last month, they were encouraging passengers who enquired at the information desk to use Nolan Coaches over Dublin Bus, telling passengers outright lies about the service - claiming that Nolan Coaches "stops closer to Connolly Station"*, "is roughly the same price"† and "is faster"‡ than Dublin Bus - so I don't think this is true.Irish ferries and CIE are linked in together. They wont advertise a competitors service
* Nolan Coaches moved to a bus stop on the other side of the Liffey in September, ten minutes' walk from Connolly Station. Dublin Bus still stops directly outside.
† Nolan Coaches charge both adults and children €3; and (through a government subsidy scheme that was actually intended for services used by students to commute to college) holders of young adult/student Leap Cards €1.50. Dublin Bus charge adults €1.70 and children 90c (€1.30 and 65c if paid by Leap Card) and holders of young adult/student Leap Cards 65c.
‡ Admittedly this might be true in strict terms of terminus-to-terminus journey time, but fails to take into account the walk from George's Quay to Connolly Station, and the fact that Dublin Bus will probably be half way to the city before Nolan Coaches leaves the port, because it inexplicably takes nearly a minute per passenger to take payment and issue tickets.