Mr. Myles O'Reilly:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this statement on behalf of TDORA, which represents taxi companies and has members in counties Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. We are aware of the complaints regarding a lack of public transport services in rural areas. We present proposals for a service that can be offered within the framework of the Taxi Regulation Act 2013. The Act and its regulations already provide for local area hackneys, but after five years there are only 13 of these nationally. The Act also provides for a community transport service operated by volunteers, which, understandably, has not provided a solution for rural areas.

The key features of our proposals are that the service would operate only from the area surrounding a village to the village and then back home, a maximum distance each way of, for example, 15 km. The area surrounding the village would be defined by regulation as being a maximum of, for example, 1,000 persons. Applicants to become village transport drivers would be examined only on the regulations related to that service, thus facilitating ease of driver entry. Return journeys from the village would be subsidised. Passengers would be required to share the journeys with others, as do bus passengers. Unlike hackneys, the vehicles would have a roof sign noting the name of the village followed by the word "transport". The vehicle would be capable of carrying seven or eight passengers. In common with other small public service vehicles such as hackneys and taxis, drivers would be vetted and licensed by the Garda and self-employed. The vehicles would be subject to NCTs and National Transport Authority rules on age and suitability. They would be wheelchair accessible.

The beneficiaries of the village transport service would be those who wish to visit or shop in their village, including elderly persons who may no longer be able to drive, persons with reduced mobility, persons with low incomes who do not own a car and those who wish to drink alcohol and comply with the drink driving laws and thus require transport to get from home to village and back again. Village services including small shops and pubs would also benefit from the service.

A subsidy will be required to make it attractive for drivers to offer the service and passengers to use it. Without a subsidy, there would be insufficient passengers to make the service viable. Almost all other passenger transport is subsidised. The level of subsidy needed per journey could be determined by a consultancy study. The service could use licensed publicans, for example, to supply subsidy vouchers to persons living outside the village to return to home. With the involvement of self-employed drivers and village publicans, the booking of journeys could be done informally. An app that could accept bookings could have a role to play but the nature of the service would not make an app essential as we are aware that some of those for whom the service is intended do not use smartphones. Of course, passengers would not be required to drink or eat in a pub or purchase other goods or services in the village to benefit from the service.

TDORA is an associate member of the International Road Transport Union, IRU, and participates in the work of the IRU taxi group. Through our membership of the IRU, we are aware of the EU HiReach programme to provide “innovative mobility solutions to cope with transport poverty” throughout Europe. Solutions are actively being explored in areas of Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Romania. There is a HiReach workshop in Brussels on 27 and 28 March to consider the results of the work that has been done so far. We believe that our proposals to the committee are innovative and can provide a solution to the transport poverty being experienced in Irish rural areas. They provide for a local informal and adaptable service that would serve the people throughout the country who wish to get to and from their local village.

We commend our proposals to the committee.