Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It was a blizzard of detail. Will the Government continue with the services or not? The Taoiseach outlined that the Expressway service is a commercial service and then he went on to say that Bus Éireann will only provide services where it is commercially advantageous for it to do so. That is a significant argument for public services if the Taoiseach does not mind me saying so. At his party's conference at the weekend the Taoiseach promised €4 billion to rural Ireland and now he is going to cut 180 services a day to 105 services. Let me repeat what I have said many times to the Taoiseach: citizens have rights. That includes the right to public services no matter where they live. The Government has been a disaster for rural Ireland. Services are being cut such as rural schools, Garda stations, health services and post offices. When one goes off the main road, one is on pot-holed boreens. Small and medium businesses are starved of credit. The main streets of many villages and towns are dying on their feet because they are neglected by the Government. Some communities will be left without GPs. The Taoiseach is a rural Deputy, yet the Government has consistently made living in rural Ireland more difficult. Coming from Mayo, he obviously knows the effects on rural communities of the scattering of half a million young people in the past eight years. The Government has also cut transport services, including that provided by Iarnród Éireann, and it has increased costs for private car users. Bus Éireann is an essential part of the public transport network. It does provide a good, quality service to a large number of towns and villages which would otherwise be isolated.

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