Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Murphy and Ms Graham. I will focus on the commercial bus licensing aspect. Mr. Murphy said that he is actively examining the reconfiguration of nearby public service obligation, PSO, services. He referred also to having advertised for a replacement service. As I explained earlier, it is obvious from the experience in my part of the country, County Leitrim, that there are large swathes of the county - and the same could apply to across the west and the Midlands - where there is now a withdrawal of services by Bus Éireann, particularly Expressway services, on which it does not get a subsidy and must compete with the private operators. It was subsidising what was effectively a commercially run service, and now the chickens have come home to roost. It cannot compete effectively and the reality is that it is now starting to withdraw from smaller towns and villages.

Mr. Murphy said he is now considering integration under the rural transport scheme. I believe the annual subsidy is about €11 million nationally, which has been reduced, and there is some suggestion of further cuts. Based on the map provided by the commercial operators earlier, in the midlands and the north west it does not seem to have any involvement in the provision of commercial services. Will Mr. Murphy now have to consider a tendering process for those services that are being withdrawn by Bus Éireann? What will be the future for small communities across the more dispersed areas of the country? This does not apply just to my area; it is across the country, because there is a gradual shift to the east coast. What is Mr. Murphy's policy in that regard? It is not fair, as one individual pointed out, to treat one part of the country differently from another part and to deprive the elderly, the infirm and those who cannot run a motor car of basic public transport. That is the challenge facing Mr. Murphy, who is charged with overall transport policy in the country. How does he intend to address that? Will he consider, for example, opening up those parts of the country and putting the service out to the private operators who say they can run them? At the same time, I suggest that the people using the existing services in the main have free travel passes. The challenge for Mr. Murphy is commercial viability, and I am curious to hear his reaction to that.