Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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This is positive ageing week and I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise some key issues concerning older people. Yesterday I attended the launch of the mid-term review of the positive ageing cross-Border project in my home town of Monaghan. The project is the result of a strategic partnership between two of the largest older people's organisations in Ireland, Age Action Ireland and Age Concern Northern Ireland. It is an excellent example of what can be done on the ground to bring people together across the Border and to facilitate them collectively to enhance their lives as individuals and members of the community. The report of the positive ageing cross-Border project states that older people living in the Border counties, North and South, have failed to benefit from the peace dividend. Many are living in isolated areas with poor public transport and dwindling services. The report is based on consultation since January of this year with older people's groups from the nine counties straddling the Border.

Positive ageing cross-Border programme development manager, Barry O'Keeffe, has stated that although many of these people have remained in their Border region community throughout the worst of times and have solidly contributed to the life of their communities, now as we look to a new peaceful future on this island, older people in the region seem to have lost out on the peace dividend. Both Age Action Ireland and Age Concern Northern Ireland call on politicians on both sides of the Border to come together in collaborative cross-Border co-operation to seek solutions to these issues.

The first and most critical issue cited by Age Action and Age Concern is the pressing need for rural public transport. They have urged all political parties to unite and respond by expanding existing rural public transport services and taking a more integrated approach to rural and cross-Border transport issues.

Age Concern Northern Ireland director of community services, Alan Herron, said rural communities were witnessing a decline in rural living marked by the withdrawal of key services including post offices, banks, pharmacies, shops and transport services. He added that the social consequences of failing to significantly address these issues in rural Border regions will be grave.

Cross-Border forums attended by older people were organised in Monaghan, Newry, Omagh, Letterkenny and Carrick-on-Shannon. At those forums the project found that poor transport and road infrastructure in the region exacerbated rural isolation and rural depopulation.

Everyone has rightly welcomed the recent introduction of the all-Ireland free travel pass. That is something we in Sinn Féin, in common with older people's groups, have advocated for many years. However, many older people in rural areas still have no way of accessing free travel in practise because the public transport infrastructure is simply not there. Only today an issue was brought to my attention concerning a pensioner in my constituency who has had to repeatedly cancel medical appointments because he does not have his own transport and cannot avail of an appropriate public service. Similar issues which present from time to time reflect the reality on the ground. We do not have the necessary public transport infrastructure to meet people's needs.

Over-centralisation of transport infrastructure in Dublin and Belfast has had a negative impact on rural peripheral and isolated Border regions. People in rural Border areas suffer a double disadvantage as both their rural location and the division of services by the Border isolates them further. Many older people are faced with declining local public and private services and weakened community and family supports. For these reasons I urge the Minister for Transport and the Marine to initiate an effective public transport system for rural communities, especially so that older people can fully avail of free travel passes to help access essential services and to make possible more active and healthier lifestyles. The Minister also needs to co-ordinate this enhanced rural public transport system with his counterpart in the Executive in the Six Counties.

I want to echo the motto of the positive ageing cross-Border project which states, "Age has no borders". This is surely a reminder that, irrespective of our age or where we live, we are all ageing and must all be concerned with these issues regardless of man-made frontiers and generation gaps. I hope the Minister of State will have some good news for those who are listening.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Ó Caoláin for raising this important issue, to which I will respond on behalf of the Minister for Transport and the Marine, Deputy Dempsey, due to his unavoidable absence. The programme for Government restates the commitment to rural transport that underpins the Department of Transport and the Marine's rural transport programme, RTP, which was launched last February. The new programme, which is administered by Pobal, is building on the success of the former rural transport initiative 2000-06 by putting that pilot initiative on a permanent mainstreamed basis with significantly increased funding provided under the programme for community transport groups to address social exclusion in their rural areas arising from unmet public transport needs.

The RTP is currently operational in all counties with the exception of County Louth, from which there was no application under the pilot rural transport initiative, and 34 community transport groups are currently funded under the programme. Some 93,000 transport services operated in 2006 and over 790,000 passenger trips were recorded on these services. The bottom-up approach developed during the pilot rural transport initiative demonstrated the effectiveness of the community and voluntary initiative and involvement in the provision of rural transport services. The RTP is building on that concept and the main drivers of community rural transport continue to be the local communities themselves. The Government's role is that of facilitator, helping local communities to address their transport needs through financial and administrative support while communities themselves take the lead in developing transport services to fulfil these needs.

The Government's continued commitment to the RTP is reflected in the inclusion in Towards 2016 of phased increases in the annual RTP allocation to about €18 million. The National Development Plan 2007-13 commits some €90 million to the RTP over its full term. The €9 million being provided for the RTP in 2007 is envisaged as leading to an increase in the frequency of existing services, extended coverage, and additional groups of customers accessing rural transport. In making specific allocations to the individual rural transport programme, RTP, groups from this funding, the Minister for Transport and the Marine has asked Pobal to work closely with the groups to maximise the impact of the funding as well as ensure continued value for money.

In addition to funding from the Department of Transport and the Marine, RTP groups 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. Some RTP groups also benefit from local development funding by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Most also generate additional funds from their own sources.

Pobal is now engaged in a process to extend the RTP on a phased basis with a goal of achieving nationwide coverage in due course. Initially this has involved consideration of the best structural arrangements to manage the RTP at local level into the future. In the short to medium term the primary focus is on building capacity within the programme to expand rural transport services by way of better services and wider coverage. Specific attention is being given to rural areas that do not currently have access to public transport.

Among other things, the mainstreaming of rural transport provision may present opportunities to enhance community-based cross-Border rural transport services, as Deputy Ó Caoláin said. With that in mind, the Department of Transport and the Marine and the Department for Regional Development in Northern Ireland are jointly supporting a research study into community-based transport services to local cross-Border communities. A European Union INTERREG IIIA programme grant will provide the major part of the funding for the study. This matter was discussed at the third meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, NSMC, in the transport sector on 14 September 2007. The council welcomed the research study that is under way and agreed to consider the report and its recommendations at a forthcoming meeting of the NSMC in the transport sector.

I assure the House on behalf of the Minister for Transport and the Marine that the Department of Transport and the Marine, in conjunction with Pobal, will progress the development of the RTP on a nationwide basis as soon as possible. In doing so, the Department will pay particular attention to the unique circumstances of cross-Border communities.