Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can only speak from my experience of working with three distinct communities and three individuals wishing to serve those communities. They satisfied all of these criteria. Their application was accompanied by a letter from a community group that advocates on behalf of the community and works to address the needs of the rural community. They were also accompanied by a forensic analysis of the public transport needs carried out by the local authority and signed by a very senior figure within the local authority management. The individual concerned also had a suitable vehicle and made a very significant commitment not to operate outside a distinct radius of, as the Minister of State pointed out, five to seven kilometers. They also committed not to undermine to any extent existing hackney services in adjoining towns or villages. They satisfied all of those criteria, yet were refused. I can only speak from the experience of working with these individuals. They were exceptionally disappointed. The communities they were willing to serve were equally disappointed.

When this rural hackney opportunity was first proposed back in December 2013, it was welcomed by a number of groups advocating on behalf of rural Ireland - Irish Rural Link, the Irish Farmers Association and the Vintners Federation of Ireland all welcomed the opportunity at long last to be able to serve the needs of rural communities that were badly served by public transport. It has been my experience that the spirit and intent of the regulations and legislation, and of the review of taxi services nationally that produced this recommendation, have not been honoured by the NTA. It seems to be an exceptionally difficult entity to deal with in terms of securing these rural hackney licences. I urge the Minister of State to engage directly with it and to question it on whether it is implementing the scheme as it was intended. It is my experience that the opposite is happening.

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