Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation from Bus Éireann and the NTA before us this morning. We are having a timely discussion. The Dublin metropolitan area has been mentioned, so is every route there paying for itself or turning a profit? Services throughout rural communities, such as broadband, have people "tut-tutting" at the notion of a dispersed population, and that attitude is being demonstrated here this morning. People live in these communities, and as Deputies and Senators have said, they need a proper service. There must be a change of attitude from Bus Éireann and the National Transport Authority. These services must be upgraded, maintained and advertised. When was the last time we saw meaningful advertisements from Bus Éireann or the National Transport Authority for the services that have cuts proposed?

The rural transport initiative was run by many of the local development companies and there was a sense of tidying up rural bus services over the past year or 18 months. In my county of Cork, there was an office set up in Bantry for the entire county. The distance from Bantry to north Cork is probably twice the length of some counties. The rural transport initiative has been pulled away from communities, despite many of the local development companies doing excellent work in knitting together the kind of information or understanding of the communities that would almost be impossible to collect on a national basis, including hospital appointments and when various clinics are on in different hospitals, etc.

I could go on all day as there must be a major discussion as to whether we will maintain services in rural communities or just throw a line around the Dublin metropolitan area, for want of a better term, and concentrate on that. With the school transport initiative, it was mentioned that there was no power to make that service available throughout the community, so what legislative change would have to take place to make it available and provide the possibility of a service to communities that deserve and need it?