Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State's comments and I look forward to having an input into the consultations on the taxi service for rural areas. It is non-existent, as the Minister of State knows. Anybody who has a family in a rural area that might be ten miles from a town cannot get a taxi out until everybody in the town is dealt with and that leads to all types of problems. I hope the Minister of State will fight to ring-fence the rural transport funding. It is less than the amount Derry International Airport gets from the Department and it is a life saver for many of the rural projects that have been established.

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