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

As we are speaking about transport and school transport, I must declare an interest in case someone says I have a conflict. I have a small bus transport service. My father operated it before me since 1956.

My question is on the rule operated by Bus Éireann whereby private contractors providing school transport cannot have buses older than 20 years. If they are older than 20 years, they are off the road. How is it that until very recently Bus Éireann was using buses that were more than 20 years old? Perhaps they are off the road now. I have been advised that they were on the road until very recently.

There was a big hullabaloo, instigated by the Minister, Deputy Ross, and some Fine Gael Ministers, which involved propaganda about an evening service operated by Irish Rural Link to bring people out and home. In Kerry, eight services were to operate. Seven of the services were on a once-a-week basis and the other was once a month to bring card players from Castlegregory to Croghane. A promise was given that this pilot service would be extended but I do not see any mention of it in any budget or hear any talk that the service is to be enhanced. What is the position in this regard?

There is no test centre for buses or lorries in south Kerry, which means people who want to have their vehicles tested must leave Valencia or Cahersiveen and travel to north Kerry or to Cork, whichever is nearer. Many of these operators are asking for this service to be provided in the southern half of the county. Who makes decisions in this regard? Is it the Department that decides where test centres are located?

Three-year road funding was announced recently but regional roads have been put together with local roads. It has been highlighted by our local authority for many years that regional roads should be given funding of their own because they take the bigger part of the local road funding in any three-year period. Many members of Kerry County Council are asking for separate funding for regional roads because they are longer and wider and take a sizeable chunk of the funding from local link roads and long cul-de-sac byroads.

There are two types of funding, one for road paving and the other for road strengthening. Road strengthening is great when we get funding. Many who see us doing road paving, which is to seal a road surface, ask why we are spending money on a good road when their roads are in way worse shape. The relevant Department, which I am sure is that of our guests, has insisted that funding of €50,000 be put aside in each engineering area should bad weather come and damage roads. It is very hard to explain this. I refer to prioritisation on the list and to what is included in the roads programme. When people who travel on a road that is very bad ask what the €50,000 is for, we have to tell them it is being kept for bad weather or flooding. They then say that they do not have to wait for their road to get bad because it is already in bad shape and they ask why the money cannot be spent on it. If there was bad weather or extreme circumstances in the past, the Exchequer provided funding to help. The current arrangement is diminishing the amount of money we receive. It is difficult to explain to people who must travel on an already bad road that we are waiting for some other road to get bad in order that the money might be spent on it.

How are national primary route projects selected? IBEC tells us that we have fewer projects than any other country in Europe. It keeps pointing out that interest rates have never been lower and that money is easily obtained for these projects. I am asking how the projects are selected because the Killarney bypass was promised in 2003. In 2004, there was a big presentation in what was then the Great Southern Hotel and the project was to proceed. The name of the hotel changed for a while and now it is the Great Southern Hotel again but we still do not have the Killarney bypass. Some 18,500 vehicles travel on the ring road. It is chock-a-block. It has been determined that the road is no longer safe in view of the volume of traffic. I ask that the project to which I refer be progressed and prioritised. We are now hoping and taking for granted that Macroom bypass will go ahead. The existing road serves the traffic coming in from the Moll’s Gap side. If the bypass were put in place from Castlelough to Lissivigeen, it would help the people. It would take all the traffic around Kenmare Place that wants to go on to Tralee or up the country and, likewise, the traffic coming in on the N22. The town is absolutely choking. It is good that there is traffic but it is felt that the town will lose out eventually because people are not happy to be sitting in their cars for perhaps an hour and a half or two hours between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m on warm evenings. No one is happy with that.

I want to ask a question that contractors ask me. How is school transport funding given to the operator, Bus Éireann? Is it subsidising other services of Bus Éireann?

I, like many throughout the country, am very upset about all the talk of climate change, carbon tax and the big cry since the budget-----