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

I thank the Minister for his reply. It is clear the pilot programme that was rolled out was not very attractive. It has obviously been a complete failure. The Minister mentioned the transport regulator. Over the years, successive Governments have given far too many powers away to entities and statutory agencies. We need to make decisions at the political level. Most of the Minister's constituents can access light rail, the DART or the Luas, and other public transport options. A hell of a lot of my constituents, decent people, have a free travel pass but may never have availed of it in their lives because they are neither next nor near a public transport service. On a Friday morning, I may meet people who have got a taxi to my town to collect their pension, do some shopping and so on. If those people have to take a taxi a few times a week, it will cost them a big portion of their pension payment. Surely it is within the capacity of the Government and the Oireachtas to devise a system that would provide some assistance towards local hackney or taxi costs to assist people who have never had the opportunity to make use of their free travel passes. That is a great initiative introduced many decades ago but a large cohort of our pensioners are not able to avail of that particular facility. Consideration should be given to providing some help for those people when they have to go on their weekly or twice-weekly trip to the local village or town, sometimes to go to mass, church or whatever. I again emphasise that, for pensioners on a small income, paying for hackneys or taxis can mean that a substantial slice of their income for the week is gone.

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