Bus Éireann has said if it does not make changes to some of its services, Expressway will go out of business and hundreds of jobs will be lost.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications is hearing from representatives from Bus Éireann and the National Transport Authority on the discontinuation of certain Expressway services.
Bus Éireann CEO Martin Nolan said: "If we do not make changes required by customers, Expressway will go out of business and jobs will be lost, both within Bus Éireann and among the wide range of suppliers that depend on Bus Éireann across the country."
He said 500 people are involved in Expressway and those are the jobs at risk.
Mr Nolan said the company cannot trade recklessly and Expressway has to make a commercial return on its routes to enable fleet replacement as it does not receive any funding for buses or coaches on these routes.
Mr Nolan said the company has a choice of either coming out of some places or shutting down in total.
He said thousands of euro is being lost on a weekly basis and the company has to be able to compete with competitors.
National Transport Authority CEO Anne Graham said the NTA is "acutely aware of significant concerns at the loss of certain commercial services in rural towns and villages".
She said a working group of representatives of all the communities affected along Route 7, from Cork and Dublin/Dublin Airport, has been set up.
The replacement services for Route 5, Dublin-Waterford, have been finalised, she said, and the local representatives will be briefed in the next week on those proposals.
Ms Graham said the NTA has to operate within its budgets.
She said if additional services were provided, which she said the NTA wants to provide, further funding would be required and a proposal will be put to the Department of Transport.
She said: "If we had more funding we would be able to provide the services".
