Mr. Gerry Murphy:

Thank you for inviting us today. We have already circulated committee members with our document Strengthening Connections in Rural Ireland, which explains the restructuring, as well as a questions and answers document. I will focus on some of the key points in that document to allow more time for committee to ask questions.

It is best to look back at the early stages of the programme. The rural transport programme was launched in 2007 but was built on an initiative that started in 2002. That had been established to meet the patently unmet transport demands in rural Ireland from a social inclusion and community-based perspective. The rural transport programme to date has had a focus on rural isolation and enhancing the mobility, accessibility and community participation of local people, especially those at risk of social exclusion. While the services are open to the public, older people and people with disabilities have formed the main customer base of the programme to date.

The programme operates through 35 rural transport programme groups covering the country, which are managed in the main by voluntary committees, with subsidy funding to the groups provided now by the National Transport Authority. The individual groups are responsible for identifying the specific services to be provided locally.

There has been a great success and growth of the programme. The level of services has increased rapidly over the years, going from 40,000 services in 2003 to more than 217,000 services in 2012. The number of passenger journeys recorded has increased from 171,000 in 2003 to 1.73 million in 2012. Funding for the pilot transport initiative and its successor, the rural transport programme, has increased from €3 million in 2003 to €11 million in 2010. However, in common with many other Government-supported services, funding levels have fallen back in recent years as a result of the pressure on public finances. We have seen this in all public transport subsidy areas.

A value-for-money review was commissioned by the Government in 2007. It examined the period from 2002 to 2009 and specifically focused on the period after 2007 when the programme was mainstreamed. When it was published in early 2012 the review raised concerns about the overall value for money of the programme and the cost of the organisational structures. In 2009 some 22% of total group expenditure went on administration. In addition, there was inconsistency in fare levels throughout the country, inconsistency in the cost per service throughout the country and an absence of data to measure the benefits or positive impacts of the schemes, as well as a range of other issues.

In January 2012 the Government decided to give the National Transport Authority responsibility for integrating local and rural transport and for the rural transport programme as well. We took over that function on 1 April 2012 and we have been working on the details of the plan since that time to improve integration. Ms Graham chairs the national committee which involves all the stakeholders, including the HSE and other bodies, and is working to examine the findings of the value-for-money review to see whether we could restructure the programme. Our plans for restructuring were launched on 9 July by the Minister of State with responsibility for public and community transport, Deputy Alan Kelly. As a result of this restructuring we believe that rural transport services will be better protected through lower administration costs and will be more closely woven into local authority transport planning and our mainstream national transport provision. There will be no reduction in transport services offered locally as a consequence of the restructuring. In fact, users will benefit from better integration with other State-funded and licensed transport services, all of which are under our remit.

What is in the new plan? The key element relates to the new administrative structures. We will establish 18 transport co-ordination units. They will be grant-aided by the authority and will work with the NTA and the local authorities to provide a co-ordinated response to local transport needs. These units will retain much of the experience and local links and knowledge of the current service providers and only the existing rural transport programme groups can apply to form the new units. The voluntary boards will remain part of the new structures. The administrative savings achieved by this will protect the services provided to the end user.

Amalgamations and mergers will have to take place to deliver 18 units from the current 35 groups. We are engaging with a consultation process with the entire sector. We spent yesterday in Portlaoise with the network and representative groups and had a very productive meeting. We are encouraging groups to talk to each other and to come to us with formal plans for how they are going to amalgamate and create the new structures. We will start a formal submission process in September and will ask for submissions for the units. By Christmas we hope to have those details confirmed.

Another new element of the plan is relationships with local authorities. We already work in partnership with regional and local authorities across Ireland to ensure that the national transport policy is reflected in regional and local plans and also to hear from local authorities in order that we can reflect their needs in our plans. To date, local authorities have been excluded from transport provision in their administrative areas. In the future we hope they will prepare local transport plans for their areas which identify the areas that need to be better served by public transport. These plans will help us to identify the gaps and needs throughout the counties. The units at local level, because of their detailed knowledge, will be able to detail the routes and stopping points for services. We are also asking local authorities to help to house the transport co-ordination units in any available office space they may have. We hope to reduce the costs of the programme through the use of overtime with this kind of arrangement.

I refer to the change in bus services. Bus services will be provided by bus operators contracted to the authority. At the moment Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Irish Rail are contracted to us. All scheduled and demand-responsive services currently provided will be incorporated into public transport service contracts. The rules regarding those will be set out in national legislation and will rest with the authority. There are two types of contract. One is by direct award. A number of rural transport groups provide the majority of their services by using their own fleets, of which many vehicles are wheelchair-accessible. We propose to directly award contracts to those groups in accordance with EU regulations - that is, they will not have to competitively tender. The second type of contract covers the remainder of the services. In a similar manner to what happens now, we will have a tender procedure for those services. One aspect of our procurement will be to focus on improving accessibility levels across the country. The units will take bookings and handle dispatch for the service. They currently do that, and people will be familiar with such services. They will check the performance of operators, report on moneys and identify potential route changes to us. We will vary the contracts to develop new routes or better serve the demand that is emerging.

There are two other initiatives occurring with which these units will be involved. Community car schemes involve volunteers offering to use their cars or a car given by an organisation to drive individuals who have no transport. The units will have a strong role in this initiative. They can confirm the need for those services, identify the pool of drivers and generally advise us. We will have to exercise exemptions from taxi and hackney regulations, which is one of the new features of the new taxi Bill. Carriage for reward, even if it is for basic petrol money, would move community car schemes into the taxi licensing area. The new taxi Bill addresses that matter and allows for exemptions for community car schemes.

Our proposal includes a local area hackney licence for certain rural locations. The objective of this licence, which we would hope to introduce later this year, is to facilitate low-cost entry to the hackney market for transport provision in isolated rural areas which would not have any other services. A typical example would be an isolated village or town where people have no options for returning home at night from their community or social activities. These licences will only be applicable in areas where there is no other provision in terms of hackneys or taxis. The units will play an important role in giving advice to the authority on the suitability of those areas for such a licence.

That is a brief summary of the programme and its history. There is much to be done in serving rural areas. We know the gaps and needs very well. A key step is to get the framework right. If there is the opportunity to do so in the future and an increased subsidy is available, we will have the correct framework on which we can build.

I commend all those involved in rural transport groups over the years who have developed this initiative from nothing in 2002 to 1.73 million journeys in 2012. Their hard work, expertise, and enthusiasm, and the voluntary nature of the boards, has taken the scheme from a standing start ten years ago to a national network of services which we want to protect today. I will be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.