Ms Anne Graham:

I am here now and can answer some of the Deputy's questions. Apologies for not being here earlier.

The Deputy posed a number of questions. Focusing on the commercial services first, we carried out a public consultation in 2019. We have an objective to move our commercial services, which are licensed by the authority, to being wheelchair accessible in as much as possible. Mr. Creegan may have covered this in his opening statement and subsequent responses. However, the difficulty that we have is finding an appropriate vehicle, particularly if we want to have low-floor access for the long-distance fleet. Currently, the vehicles in the wheelchair accessible long-distance fleet are fitted with wheelchair lifts. That fleet is not the most accessible from the perspective of wheelchair users, in particular. It requires the removal of seats if a wheelchair user is to use it. It is not the level of service that we wish to see on our public transport services. However, in terms of fleet manufacture, the main type vehicles produced for long-distance coach travel feature a wheelchair lift.

We undertook a public consultation in 2019. We have put together proposals that we will publish. We concluded the proposals at our own board level and the Covid pandemic hit just as we were about to complete that process. In respect of the timeframe for introducing the requirements on commercial services, we needed to pause that until we got beyond the Covid pandemic, because it would place a financial burden on a sector that is currently under extreme pressure because of the pandemic. We will publish the proposals when we get to a point where we feel that the industry is in a position to be able to deliver on improved wheelchair accessibility across the services, which we hope to be very soon.

In terms of the provision for rural transport, in all counties, including Clare, we provide for both fixed and direct services, which are town to town services, on a fixed schedule and route. We also provide demand responsive services. There is a mixture of services. Our ambition is for all of those services to be wheelchair accessible. To a very large extent, our services across rural transport are wheelchair accessible, be it with a rear lift. However, we are moving towards as many of the vehicles being low-floor accessible as possible. That is the case in Clare, as in the other parts of the country.

On the issue of the board vacancy, it is a matter for the Minister to appoint the members of the NTA board. The Department and the Minister are aware that we have three vacancies on our board. It is with the Department and the Minister to advertise the posts. I believe they will be advertised shortly.

In respect of the tendering process in County Clare, we believe that all tendering processes were followed as part of the delivery of the services and the retendering in the Clare area. We did allow operators a period of time to retrofit their vehicles. That would be the norm in a tendering and contractual process. We do not believe that there is any discrimination against wheelchair passengers in the services that we provide. We do as much as possible to ensure our services are accessible. In some cases, the availability of fleet in a particular location or the availability of an operator with the type of fleet that is required is sometimes not there and it can take a number of retenders to be able to provide the level of service that we wish to provide.