Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter regarding the extension of the rural transport initiative to north Monaghan. This successful national pilot programme is aimed at those who are excluded and do not have available, accessible or affordable local transport. The rural transport initiative should be extended to north Monaghan. I do not need to extol the virtues of this excellent scheme which has proved a phenomenal success. It was piloted but has been adopted as an ongoing programme and funded by the national development plan. It has opened up the lives of many people. There was a time when a son or daughter would be around the house and would be able to take their parents into town, but that time is gone. We must replace it with some form of rural transport initiative.

I understood that there was a transport programme in north Monaghan but then I met a woman who lives four miles outside of town. She explained to me that it costs €8 to take a taxi into town and another €8 to come back out. She was reasonably well off but very concerned about her neighbours in Knockatallon who might have to spend €15 each way for a taxi into town. If one is on a pensioners' income, one will not go into town very often if that is what it costs. The real tragedy is that there was a successful initiative operated by CIE for six or seven years. There were two schemes in the north Monaghan area. The first covered Bellanode, Scotstown, Knockatallon and Tedavnet and the second covered Knocknagrave, Crush, Carrickroe, Clara, Ballyoisin, Mullan, Emyvale and Glaslough. Those schemes were well supported but the head honchos in Dublin decided that the routes were not making enough profit. Are these routes put on to make a profit or to provide a service? It should be a mixture of both. A good mix of people supported these two initiatives, so much so that in regard to the Carricroe-Clara-Emyvale scheme, a private bus operator thought he could keep it going. I spoke to that private operator recently and he informed me that he cannot continue in operation, much as he would like to do so because he has family and other contacts in the area. I asked him about the people with free bus passes and he said he cannot charge them even though he is entitled to do so. People who use the bus as an extra service support him.

There is room to extend the rural transport initiative to this area of Monaghan. It meets all the criteria. We have lovely brochures on rural transport initiatives but the transport is not available, accessible or affordable to people locally. Why does the Department bother giving people free bus passes? It is an insult to give them a free bus pass if the transport service is not available. Providing these passes in such circumstances is meaningless. Society is marginalised enough in rural Border areas. We are talking about people who are living ten to 15 miles from town and this service gives them a major lift in that they can go to town every so often.

There are a number of successful examples in the constituency. We have the Balti Bus in the Latton-Ballybay-Bawn areas, which is operated from the Latton Resource Centre. In the Kilnaleck community co-operative, we have another successful example of a rural transport initiative and we also have Rural Lift in Blacklion. The Cavan-Monaghan constituency lends itself very well to that type of initiative. In my area of north Monaghan the rural transport initiative should be put back in place. We should be proactive about this issue. We should do a survey on it. The scheme was operated in the past and it was used. People used the transport system and if they used it in the past I have no doubt they will use it in the future. That is what rural transport is about. It is about opening up people's lives and allowing them travel into town. It is a type of socialisation programme for people. I ask that serious consideration be given to re-adapting this programme for the north Monaghan area because it is very much needed.

Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Connolly for raising the matter. He brought back memories to me when he talked about Monaghan, Cavan, the Kilnaleck region and that whole area. It is an area I travelled over many years and I know the highways and byways and the terrain very well.

Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)
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I never mentioned the victory against Meath.

Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is funding the provision of public transport in rural areas through the rural transport initiative. This is a scheme my good friend and colleague, the then Minister for Transport, Deputy Seamus Brennan, initiated in 2002 to provide funding on a pilot basis for community organisations and partnerships to address the transport needs of their rural area through the provision of local transport services. The then Minister, Deputy Brennan, was aware of such needs arising from feedback through the national Fianna Fáil organisation when many members raised the issues to which Deputy Connolly referred.

The RTI is now operational in virtually all counties and 34 community transport groups are currently being funded under the initiative. Under the initiative, some 65,000 RTI transport services were provided in 2004 and more than 500,000 passenger trips were recorded on those services. I understand that one of the RTI project groups, the Bawn and Latton rural transport initiative, which operates under the title Balti Bus, provides public transport services in rural parts of County Monaghan to which Deputy Connolly referred.

Area Development Management Limited administers the RTI on behalf of the Department. ADM and the individual RTI groups are solely responsible for all the operational aspects of the RTI, including the destinations to be served, and my Department has no role in these issues.

My Department provided €3 million for the RTI in each of the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. The initiative has been further extended until 2006 and the allocation for this year has been increased to €4.5 million. I am pleased to confirm to Deputy Connolly funding of the order of €5 million for the RTI in 2006 and to put the initiative on a permanent financial footing from 2007. This will result in an overall funding commitment of more than €18 million for the RTI to the end of 2006, which is good news and compares very favourably with the total of €4.4 million originally provided for the RTI in the national development plan.

The increased level of funding for the RTI will facilitate the completion of the pilot phase of the initiative. It will also provide scope for the 34 community transport groups being funded under the scheme to undertake an expansion of services as envisaged in the 2004 evaluation of the RTI. I have asked ADM to work closely with the pilot project groups to maximise the impact of the increased funding and to ensure continued value for money.

It should be borne in mind that the RTI projects also benefit each year from funding provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs arising from the application of the free travel scheme to the initiative. In addition, some RTI projects are also generating additional funds from the provision of transport services to health boards and from other sources. That is an issue on which I will be happy to assist Deputy Connolly because he raised the question of recipients of free travel. There is scope within the areas I mentioned that may be helpful to Deputy Connolly and if he wants to explore them or raise any problems he should get back to me.

In deciding on the extension of the RTI to the end of 2006, I am conscious that many of the individual projects only became fully operational in 2003 and that continuing the RTI to the end of 2006 will ensure that the lifespan of the initiative will dovetail with the end date of the National Development Plan 2000-2006.

The extension will facilitate a more comprehensive appraisal of the effectiveness of the pilot initiative in addressing the transport needs of rural areas. It will enable the 34 RTI projects to further explore different models of transport provision and to strategically develop new methods of planning, co-ordinating, integrating, procuring and providing transport in areas where it was traditionally considered difficult to do so, as Deputy Connolly outlined in his contribution.

In providing additional time for the RTI projects to fully mature, I am facilitating the emergence of models of best practice in the provision of rural transport services both in terms of operational and organisational management.

Deputies will be aware that my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Deputy Cullen, officials of my Department and I are currently finalising a multi-annual investment framework for transport. This framework will identify the investment needs and outline the measures required to further develop all elements of our national transport infrastructure. The rollout of a more permanently based RTI will be carried out in the context of this ten year strategy.

I assure the House that in developing proposals for a more permanent RTI, we will pay particular attention to the views of all those involved in the pilot phase of the RTI, especially passengers, operators and managers, to establish how we can develop the scheme beyond the completion phase of 2007 onwards.