Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending the meeting and taking questions. I said this morning on Radio Kerry that the fact that the witnesses are coming to this meeting makes this one of the most important meetings ever held by the committee due to the importance of what we are discussing.

Deputy Moynihan hit the nail on the head earlier by asking what services are being cut in Dublin and whether all of the routes in Dublin are making money. The answer, clearly, was that Bus Éireann is cutting nothing in Dublin. It has loss-making routes in Dublin but it will not dare touch them. However, the rest of the country, particularly rural Ireland, is fair game to be attacked. It has lost its social welfare offices, Garda stations, post offices, shops and small pubs. The next thing it is faced with is losing its bus service. Over the last number of weeks I have been contacted by elderly people in particular, and users of the bus service in north, south, east and mid-Kerry to ask me if they will lose their bus service. It is incumbent on the witnesses to tell us.

Our job as public representatives is to help and assist people in our communities. We should know if services are going to be threatened, cut or reconfigured, to use the word used by the witness. It is a word I would love to see the back of. The HSE use it all of the time, saying it is reconfiguring its service. Can people not just speak plain English and say they are cutting the service? We are talking about a very important service and the people who have been in contact with me, and indeed other representatives, are deeply worried.

I want to know, for instance, if Bus Éireann is looking at cutting services to Waterville, mid-Kerry and east Kerry. I want to know in advance - as will my colleagues in Kerry, be they county councillors, Senators or TDs - what Bus Éireann is thinking of doing and what it is proposing, because we want an opportunity to react beforehand, not afterwards. I do not want to pick up a newspaper and read that such and such a service is cut or hear on Radio Kerry that such and such a service has been cut and the public will be let down. We cannot have that. It is not fair on Bus Éireann's customers, who have relied on its service and who have been grateful for it.

Everybody has their own take on it. I am not all negative. I compliment Bus Éireann on the service it runs. Its representatives heard a negative story a while ago. In my experience of Bus Éireann's employees who drive the buses and those in Tralee who run the services, they are extremely professional, very courteous and good at their job. I really mean that, because it is wrong to paint such a picture, although the Deputy was not doing that. I would not want an impression to go out from here that Bus Éireann gives a substandard service or that its drivers are not excellent, because my experience is the exact opposite, and I want to acknowledge that.

We have a chance to create awareness in these areas. If this involves parts of Kerry, about which I am speaking specifically, I want to know Bus Éireann's proposals and its representatives' thinking, because we want to save services if possible.

We have lost so much in rural areas over the years. In the past there were politicians who decided it was a good idea to break up the rural rail network. When we look back on that, it was a crazy decision. For instance, if the railway line that went down into Cahirciveen was open today, it would change the county completely from both a tourism and a business point of view. That happened all over Ireland at that time and it was a shame. It should not have happened. I do not want history to repeat itself.

I do not want us to lose services now because if we lose a service we will not get it back. It is the same as the post office that closes or the pub that shuts down. We will not get it back. It does not work that way. Whatever falls off the radar is gone and gone forever. That is why we cherish and appreciate the service Bus Éireann gives.

I appreciate and acknowledge the importance of commercial viability, but at the end of the day Bus Éireann provides a public service, and we want that to continue. The buses might not be full but the passengers who use them want that service. They need and require it, and they rely on it. I cannot stress enough how upsetting it would be for the passengers, not all of whom are elderly.