Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I will just make a few comments and then we will move on to the answers to the questions. We will then go over and back between the members. The witnesses are very welcome. They have a vast collective wealth of experience from right across the country. They provide a very important public service; I acknowledge that. The absence of the critical mass required to provide services commercially in disparate rural areas means those services are not being provided to individuals. That is what we are addressing here today.

I would like to make two points. There is significant funding for rural transport. It has increased from €10 million in 2015 to €14.3 million in 2018. Notwithstanding criticism of them, rural transport services carry more than 1.9 million passengers, of whom almost 1 million have free travel passes and 200,000 require assistance or have some significant disability. The buses travel more than 11.8 million km. There are more than 900 drivers and 400 private operators. The core of what Mr. O'Reilly is saying is that we need to support persons who wish to provide this service and to meet a significant portion of their costs where the population base is less than 1,000 and the distances involved are not greater than 15 km, acknowledging the point about Mayo. I found the point Mr. Macken made about connectivity between the rural link and the taxis and hackneys very interesting. That is hugely important. If there is joined-up thinking at that end of delivery, access to taxis can be part of the service. Many constructive points have been made here. Senator Feighan has returned.