Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I congratulate the various spokespersons on their appointments. I look forward to working with them and Question Time being a useful way of debating on the floor of the House issues of major national importance.

As Deputy Ring is aware, there are no public transport services in many rural areas at night. While such services are available in the more developed rural areas, by either hackney or taxi services, these are at the discretion of the providers and do not provide a guaranteed service for rural people. It was against this background, therefore, that earlier this year I introduced a new evening transport service on a pilot basis to allow rural people to fully participate in community, sports and social activities taking place in their areas. The new scheme also aims to address the current market failure in this area.

The 34 groups delivering the rural transport programme operated by the Department of Transport were invited by Pobal to submit applications for consideration under the new scheme. Following the appraisal of the proposals submitted, seven groups were selected to run the pilot scheme, namely, West Cork Rural Transport, Avondhu Development Group in east Cork, Meath Accessible-Kilnaleck Community Cavan, County Sligo Leader Partnership, Tumna Shannon Development Company Roscommon, Síob Teoranta Donegal and, Laois Trip. The projects were selected having regard to such criteria as evidence of need, strength of proposal, capacity of the group, value for money and geographical spread.

The budget for the pilot scheme is €500,000. The first service commenced in June and service and passenger numbers are expected to increase throughout the autumn. Although only in the early stages, I understand the services are being very well received by communities and passengers alike. Early indications are that older people, people with a disability and young people are particularly enthusiastic about the new services and new activities are being planned around their availability.

All services focus on maximising the general community good. I am conscious of the need to ensure no displacement takes place of commercially viable existing services as a result of the introduction of the new scheme. My intention is that the pilot scheme will be reviewed after a year and decisions in relation to its future will be informed by the outcome of the evaluation.

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