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

What is happening with Connecting Ireland is really significant and it is already working. It only started in 2021 when we introduced two services. The first one was in Leitrim, with the integration of health service bus needs with a Local Link regular public service obligation, PSO, service. The numbers using the service jumped. The second example was around the Dingle Peninsula and Slea Head in County Kerry, where what had been an erratic and infrequent service became a regular service. I cannot remember the figure but I think there was a 20-fold increase in patronage. It was typically used by younger people going into town or to a match. There was a huge increase in local usage. It was not just tourists in that instance. People might say that would be the case in the summer but what surprised everyone was that the usage continued right through the winter. For local people, it is a hugely important service. I do not have the figures in front of me but I think we have introduced approximately 70 new routes, and we are not stopping there. This is a five-year roll-out. The Local Link service has gone from having a budget of about €12 million a few years ago to €28 million last year, and that will continue to be ramped up.

On the Connecting Ireland piece, it is not always provided by Local Link. Bus Éireann also provides some of the PSO routes. I agree with the Deputy, however, Local Link has real potential. It is about 20 years in existence and has community-based, bottom-up local knowledge. The way it works is that the NTA is key in designing routes and service provision, while Local Link typically provides the transport centres, the local knowledge and access connections mechanism, and then there are the operators. The bus companies could be commercial bus companies and are often the same people providing other transport services.

It is about the integration of the new PSO services with health services, and I hope it will evolve to include education as well, so that there is a regular frequency of service. We are initially providing is a service that runs three times a day but, when we get the numbers up and integrate it with other health and education services, we hope to increase that to five times a day. That will then create a virtuous circle where it is regular and reliable. We need to do a lot of work. We need to put in bus stops. It is not clear where the stops are and that needs to change. We need to do much better marketing, including online, and use it for all the apps that will be developed in order that people have better knowledge of the service. It is actually taking off. The numbers have been transformative. It is really popular.