Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The other issue is that this is only meant to operate in place of market failure. Whereas rural transport, as we commonly know it, is needed everywhere in the country because of its focused effect, this is only meant to operate where there are no buses, taxis or hackneys available.

One suggestion, which may be a good idea and to which I am open, is that once I have done my review, we would come back to the committee some time in the autumn to get the wisdom of all its members and tease out the best approach in much more detail than can be done on a Priority Question in six minutes.

We need to convenience the greatest number of people, both with and without entitlement to free travel, and get the best bang for our buck so that we can stretch it out to as many areas of the country as need it and do not have commercial services.

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