Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I come from Belmullet, which has no transport. We speak about transport as if it has become a recent problem but it has been a problem in rural Ireland for many years. I am glad to be having this discussion. A few issues are arising, including the issue of displacing existing taxi drivers in an area. We do not want to have a situation where other people, who have served communities for many years and sometimes over several generations, will be put out of business.

The witnesses are probably not familiar with the Belmullet peninsula but if someone wanted to go from Blacksod to Belmullet the journey would be far more than 15 km. How would the 15-km limit work in this instance?

This is operating in 13 areas. Has the effectiveness of the pilot been reviewed and analysed? While the service would address some of the problems it would not address problems such as trips to hospital. This is one of the main problems we have in rural Ireland, particularly for people living alone who do not have transport to hospital. There is also the lack of connectivity between buses and trains. These pose big problems. We are here to discuss solutions and I am glad to be having this debate from that point of view.