Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

We were at a meeting last week in Mitchelstown that Deputies O'Keeffe and Sherlock attended. It was part of our national campaign on bus services. All the unions here are fully supportive of the scheme of the Department of Social Protection. We should change the title from the free travel scheme to something about entitlement. A very small example of the value of the scheme was given to us at a meeting in west Limerick by a woman who sat very timidly in the audience on the night in question while listening to our presentation. She was not going to raise her hand but did so since there was a lot of debate over the Department of Social Protection. Listening to what the woman had to say was heart-rending. She is a full time carer of her husband and is in her 50s or 60s. She gets respite for ten hours once every two weeks. The place is called Templeeglantine, a dot in the landscape.