Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

My Department is funding the provision of public transport in rural areas through the rural transport initiative. This is a scheme my good friend and colleague, the then Minister for Transport, Deputy Seamus Brennan, initiated in 2002 to provide funding on a pilot basis for community organisations and partnerships to address the transport needs of their rural area through the provision of local transport services. The then Minister, Deputy Brennan, was aware of such needs arising from feedback through the national Fianna Fáil organisation when many members raised the issues to which Deputy Connolly referred.

The RTI is now operational in virtually all counties and 34 community transport groups are currently being funded under the initiative. Under the initiative, some 65,000 RTI transport services were provided in 2004 and more than 500,000 passenger trips were recorded on those services. I understand that one of the RTI project groups, the Bawn and Latton rural transport initiative, which operates under the title Balti Bus, provides public transport services in rural parts of County Monaghan to which Deputy Connolly referred.

Area Development Management Limited administers the RTI on behalf of the Department. ADM and the individual RTI groups are solely responsible for all the operational aspects of the RTI, including the destinations to be served, and my Department has no role in these issues.

My Department provided €3 million for the RTI in each of the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. The initiative has been further extended until 2006 and the allocation for this year has been increased to €4.5 million. I am pleased to confirm to Deputy Connolly funding of the order of €5 million for the RTI in 2006 and to put the initiative on a permanent financial footing from 2007. This will result in an overall funding commitment of more than €18 million for the RTI to the end of 2006, which is good news and compares very favourably with the total of €4.4 million originally provided for the RTI in the national development plan.

The increased level of funding for the RTI will facilitate the completion of the pilot phase of the initiative. It will also provide scope for the 34 community transport groups being funded under the scheme to undertake an expansion of services as envisaged in the 2004 evaluation of the RTI. I have asked ADM to work closely with the pilot project groups to maximise the impact of the increased funding and to ensure continued value for money.

It should be borne in mind that the RTI projects also benefit each year from funding provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs arising from the application of the free travel scheme to the initiative. In addition, some RTI projects are also generating additional funds from the provision of transport services to health boards and from other sources. That is an issue on which I will be happy to assist Deputy Connolly because he raised the question of recipients of free travel. There is scope within the areas I mentioned that may be helpful to Deputy Connolly and if he wants to explore them or raise any problems he should get back to me.

In deciding on the extension of the RTI to the end of 2006, I am conscious that many of the individual projects only became fully operational in 2003 and that continuing the RTI to the end of 2006 will ensure that the lifespan of the initiative will dovetail with the end date of the National Development Plan 2000-2006.

The extension will facilitate a more comprehensive appraisal of the effectiveness of the pilot initiative in addressing the transport needs of rural areas. It will enable the 34 RTI projects to further explore different models of transport provision and to strategically develop new methods of planning, co-ordinating, integrating, procuring and providing transport in areas where it was traditionally considered difficult to do so, as Deputy Connolly outlined in his contribution.

In providing additional time for the RTI projects to fully mature, I am facilitating the emergence of models of best practice in the provision of rural transport services both in terms of operational and organisational management.

Deputies will be aware that my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, officials of my Department and I are currently finalising a multi-annual investment framework for transport. This framework will identify the investment needs and outline the measures required to further develop all elements of our national transport infrastructure. The rollout of a more permanently based RTI will be carried out in the context of this ten year strategy.

I assure the House that in developing proposals for a more permanent RTI, we will pay particular attention to the views of all those involved in the pilot phase of the RTI, especially passengers, operators and managers, to establish how we can develop the scheme beyond the completion phase of 2007 onwards.

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