Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree. The new hackney service we introduced in January is exactly what the Deputy has described. The hackney drivers are part time. It is not expected that any of them will be full time. Bookings would have to be made in advance. It can aggregate passengers and it is designed exactly as the Deputy described it. We have set out a number of villages across the country, particularly those with a smaller population which might not be able to afford or might not have the business for a full-time hackney operator. We are providing grant support of about €6,000 and Garda vetting and insurance are taken care of. It is designed to be part time and, as the Acting Chairman suggests, could be really transformative. It might be someone who wants just a few hours' work a day and an extra few bob. Those cars will be available at the times they are needed. The scheme is starting now. Right across the country, there are examples of villages that are using it. We will see how it is working and if it is successful, we will scale up.

Another project we are going to do is an addendum to the BusConnects project, looking at when passengers get to the endpoint on a bus route. We are looking at an on-demand app-based system where people would able to use the app to aggregate groups of people in rural and dispersed areas to get a further transfer, the last mile. That makes it economic. We are going to invest in this but it has not been announced yet. We are looking at three places in the country as test locations for a new mobile app, last-mile, local service.