Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the extension of the M7 coach service to Tralee and Killarney in the recent past and the decision to disallow pick-ups at towns on the routes from Limerick to Tralee and Limerick to Killarney, including Abbeyfeale, Castleisland and Newcastlewest. The witnesses might come back to me on that.

The second issue will come as no surprise to the Chairman or Mr. Creegan. I am absolutely disgusted with the National Transport Authority. We have been at this for the last four years. The National Transport Authority will say it comes to the Oireachtas, listens and engages with public representatives. However, it engages on its own terms. Its terms when it comes to rural transport services are that one can have whatever one wants as long as it is what the NTA gives one. I have continuously raised an issue here which has fallen on deaf ears and nothing has happened. In fact, the situation has gotten worse in relation to rural hackneys. A sop was created in the not-to-distant past in the establishment of the special rural taxi licence, which was an admission by the National Transport Authority and relevant Government Departments that there was a deficiency in relation to rural hackneys. It was a joke. If one contacts the local authorities which have a role in this, they do not even know what it is. There is supposed to be a transport co-ordinator from whom one can seek information. On the NTA's own website, it suggests that as part of compiling information to show that one can meet the needs, one can contact people like a local priest, shopkeeper or publican. That would all be very well and good if those people were in situ. However, we have parishes in County Limerick, unfortunately, which have been amalgamated and there is no priest. There is often no local shop or pub.

The National Transport Authority has turned this into a bit of a joke but it is no laughing matter. The reason I continue to raise this issue is that in recent correspondence, the NTA has tried to con me into believing that if one is from Mitchelstown, County Cork, and being asked to do a knowledge test for County Cork, one should have no difficulty knowing the name of the street in Castletownbere where the post office is. That street is the same distance from Mitchelstown as O'Connell Street in Dublin. I am getting a bit withered from this-----