Mr. Ger Deering:

All that was required then was to extend the age from 65. Instead, the scheme was closed to new applicants on an interim basis. We have a bad record on this. I always felt that until we had a Department that could be held responsible for this, we were not going to make progress. In fairness to the Department of the Taoiseach, in the past two years, it has done a good job on exactly what the Cathaoirleach just mentioned. It examined all the schemes and tried to map them all. If we want to know what the best thing to do is, we have to look at what schemes we have at the moment and which of them we should enhance or whether it is a matter of replacing them with one entirely new scheme.

This is possibly what is going to happen. There is an acceptance that there is not a one size fits all and that different people have different needs. There is that last mile very often. They might have an accessible bus that serves them, but in fact they are a mile from the bus stop or the train. We have to find a way of getting people there. We will be working closely with the Department of Transport to see what comes out of this in time. However, it is the Department's job now to move on and develop a scheme.