Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

For many decades the free-travel scheme has been of great benefit to a substantial cohort of our population. By and large persons in receipt of a pension payment are eligible for free travel on public transport and in more recent years on the LocalLink services. Unfortunately in too many instances, customers of transport services operated by private carriers are not able to avail of the free-travel pass and that needs to be changed. In many cases more services could be provided in rural areas if those operators were able to avail of the free-travel scheme.

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