Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Thankfully, there is no need for that because the Government is already doing it. The Department of Transport does that and the allocation to the rural transport programme has been doubled. That programme does exactly as the Deputy has described — it brings people to their local town or village and it is locally driven. As the majority of its clientele is non-paying, it is much more expensive to run than my idea, which would service a wider spectrum of the community, but still include the targeted group the Deputy mentioned.

Whenever a proposal is made regarding rural areas, there always seems to be a better alternative. People may propose — something that we accepted as fundamental when I grew up here in Dublin — that there would be a bus in the evening in a rural area. People may ask why not save the post offices or do something else. Nobody ever asks whether we can have buses in Dublin in the evening or should we do something else with the money like investing in hospitals. Nobody makes such suggestions in the urban context. There remains a massive mental divide between what people regard as acceptable in country areas and what is absolutely basic in an urban area.

We must, of course, deal with the issue the Deputy mentioned, and we are dealing with it. In a city people need to travel much smaller distances as shops and pubs are nearby. However, if evening transport was discontinued in this city, there would be a hullabaloo. Rural areas face a much bigger problem, particularly with regard to the changes in society, because people are more scattered. When the Government starts to consider the parity issue, we are told there is no need as it is not a top priority. As someone who lives in the real countryside, I find it hard to get my head around it. I will give an example of how simple this can be.

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