Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I thank the Deputy for his comments. As the Deputy knows, mine is a very rural constituency and this issue is something about which I am very passionate. I thank him for his support for the initiative. Much of this is common sense. The issue should not be about rural transport, but about transport in rural areas, which should not be a different issue than for other areas. People who live in rural areas deserve transport as much as people in urban areas. However, there are huge challenges. We need to face reality. We cannot continue with a situation where the level of spend on taxis on non-acute HSE services increases every year when that money could be utilised better in an integrated approach to transport. Nor can we continue with the situation relating to school transport, where we have buses left parked on the side of the road for a number of hours a day and left idle over the summer months.

However, there are larger issues. Local authorities need to be involved in this because of the issues relating to co-ordination. We also need to be aware of what other issues outside of transport we need to deal with when we try to integrate the services so as to ensure that transport services can be delivered. For example, we need to look at the issue of the scheduling of medical appointments in hospitals in order to develop a coherent transport policy that will allow us ensure people can travel on the one bus. All these issues are being examined. The group is considering the model areas and I hope to be able to announce them in the near future. These will look at the issues raised by the Deputy and myself here.

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