Ms Anne Graham:

We are very much aware that even with all we propose in the Connecting Ireland programme, we estimate there is a population of almost 750,000 people in Ireland who will not be served by the regular rural services we offer. It would be very inefficient to try to serve them with the type of service we are speaking about. It is challenging to deliver a service to the likes of the village mentioned by Senator Murphy, which is less than 1 km away from the main service. Diverting off the main road will discommode other passengers. Sometimes it is very challenging to get the balance between serving smaller villages that are off the main run.

We have a number of demand-responsive services, which operate through the Local Link offices throughout the country. We have not seen growth in these services. Earlier we spoke about phase 2 of Connecting Ireland and what we do afterwards. Part of the phase 2 delivery will be looking to see how we can improve the demand-responsive side of the service, where there is a more dispersed population that can be served by a bus that will collect from the door. This would serve those with mobility issues, and either bring people to a local town from where they can travel onwards on the regular service or bring them close to the regular service at a good stopping location. This is something for the future development of Connecting Ireland. We are very much aware we are not able to reach everybody through the programme under way at present and that more work has to be done.

Accessibility of these services is very challenging. I am very much aware that it is challenging enough to get the type of accessibility we want for one wheelchair user but removing seats to be able to provide for three wheelchairs is challenging. Ensuring they have the statutory restraints can also be challenging. When these spaces are not being used we want to have as many seats available as possible for those who may not be wheelchair users but might have mobility issues and need to be seated. It is a challenge and one that we will always look at so that at least maybe a type of bus that facilitates multiple wheelchair users is available in a particular locality, not necessarily for every service but which can be provided by an operator when we are aware such a service is needed. It will be a refinement of the services we operate at present.