Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was not here and I am sorry. I would have been here had I known about it.

It is clear that we need an answer from Bus Éireann on the routes it is cutting. If the NTA is able to subsidise, how can it say it can consider subsidising certain routes if the operators are deciding which routes they will service? Surely the authority should decide in the first instance which routes need to be serviced.

Everyone is entitled to transport from the remotest part of Ireland. We are remote enough for anything. The only direction people in Caherciveen and Dingle can come is this way. They cannot go west through the Atlantic Ocean. The next stop is New York. We need to have a social service. The tracks have been pulled up since 1959 or 1960. It is unthinkable that we will have no connectivity from rural areas to Cork, where many people go day after day for medical services. Those affected are from very remote places and they need to travel to meet consultants and others. A condition of any grant assistance to any operator should be that it must provide the social service of accepting the free travel pass.

How is the company losing €9 million? I am not that great at sums but my view is based on the debt of €9 million. If €9 million will clear the debt, why not operate on the three routes? What is happening does not make sense.