Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I totally get that point when it is a case of A to B, Limerick to Kilkenny, or Galway to Dublin, or whatever, but for tourism it has to be viewed a little bit differently. Some of the timetables they submit to the NTA are totally unrealistic. In trying to get around this crazy route and back up again, they are putting huge pressure on themselves as drivers, on the service and on the local people. It is not doing any good. In fact, I would rather that some of these services stayed in Dublin and not depart in the first place because they are bringing no value but hassle. If they would slow down, if they had fewer stops, and if they had quality stops where you actually do more than take a photo when you visit a site, that is what Ireland Inc. needs in terms of tourism.

Similar to Deputy Collins, I wish to raise the issue of school transportation. A huge proportion of the Bus Éireann fleet is contracted each day to the Department of Education. While this happens all over the country, I will use an example from my locality. A 50-seater Bus Éireann coach leaves Limerick city depot and comes out to Parteen full of children. It then leaves that school gate in the morning empty and comes back in the evening. There are many similar cases in villages where buses arrive full of children and leave empty, only to come back again in the afternoon. Those villages may have no public bus service whatsoever. Driving away from the school gate when there are people in that community who would love to board that bus and go back into Limerick city is illogical. As I said, that service does not operate. As Deputy Collins said, we need to look at having joined-up thinking and getting both Departments to talk to each other. In the context of sustainability, it is ludicrous that a bus drives out of a village, which has no public bus service, empty and goes back over the hills and into a city again that afternoon.