Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 31:

In page 9, between lines 40 and 41, to insert the following:

"(e) all of the operator's fleet is fully accessible.".

This deals with the provisions on the authority's requirements for a licensee. We had a lengthy discussion on it this afternoon. I want the requirements for the grant of a licence to include that all of the operator's fleet be fully accessible. The Minister will reply that this is covered in other legislation but accessibility should be a requirement of the transport legislation. We have had a very long struggle to obtain lower entrances to buses and changes in the DART and train networks to try to bring about accessibility. The Minister stated that one company has an 80% accessibility rate. To have a level playing pitch we should require that all fleets be accessible and it should be part of the requirement to get a licence for a bus operation.

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