Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise the decision to suspend the transport service in seven rural areas of east and west Cork, Cavan, Sligo, Roscommon, Donegal and Laois. I cannot understand why the Government has done this. This service was established on a pilot basis in 2007. I have raised this matter with the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs many times during Question Time and on each occasion he has remarked on the success of the scheme.

This decision is an attack on elderly people, who are the most vulnerable in society. In rural areas we do not have Luas, Dublin Bus or any of the transport facilities available in cities. We depend on the rural community to provide rural services. This scheme was working very well but the Minister has now withdrawn funding. Given that the scheme is so successful in the seven pilot areas I expected the Government to allocate further funding to extend it to other rural areas.

Age Action is very upset by this decision. This is the Government's third attack on elderly people this year. Its first attack was on medical cards and its second on safety alarms. In some rural areas this service provides elderly and vulnerable people with their only opportunity to get their shopping, go to bingo or to meet people. This is a major setback for rural Ireland and for the elderly.

A small amount of money was working very well. I complimented Deputy Ó Cuív and his Department on how this money was being spent. It was targeted at vulnerable groups in rural Ireland. Another service is now being taken away. Post offices have gone and Garda stations are going. Bus Éireann has announced that it will cut its services by 15%. We now expect more rural services to be taken away.

This is a shame; it is a mean and petty attack on the most vulnerable who are most in need of services, the elderly in rural Ireland. I am surprised at Deputy Ó Cuív and his Department. I cannot understand why such crucial decisions are being taken in order to save such small amounts of money. The Minister of State assures me that the safety alarm scheme will be up and running in September. I hope he and the Minister will sit down with their officials tomorrow and reverse their decision, continue the pilot transport scheme and extend it to other rural areas. The agents appointed by the State are not doing the job for rural Ireland and now the Government is also letting rural people down.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Ring for raising this important issue. The safety alarm scheme is under review. Before the recent elections, Deputy Ring asked me if the scheme was an election gimmick. We are now on the far side of the elections. The review is ongoing and the scheme will be reintroduced after the summer with new guidelines and criteria. I am glad to be able to say this after the elections.

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I will raise this matter on the first Question Time in September.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am sure the Deputy will. Applications on hand before the suspension of the scheme will continue to be processed. Deputy Ring might have noticed that approximately half of those have been cleared. I hope that gives him some confidence in the future of that scheme.

To return to the matter in hand, all of us here with an interest in rural development issues know how important an issue transport is for rural areas. The Government's rural transport programme, which is the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Transport, aims to deal with what was previously the unmet public transport needs in rural Ireland. Substantial funding of €11 million is provided to support this service under the rural transport programme.

As Minister with responsibility for rural development, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív very much welcomes the service this programme provides to our rural areas and the fact that it has been expanding its services over the years. Given his responsibility, he was also conscious of the specific issue of evening and night transport services for rural areas which he examined in conjunction with the Department of Transport, in 2007.

As a result of that consideration, the pilot rural transport night scheme was launched in 2007 and the Minister was glad to be able to fund it as a pilot exercise from within his Department. However, the Deputies will appreciate that the mainstream provision of transport services, including rural transport, is a matter for the Minister for Transport and Department of Transport and, accordingly, it was always the intention that the more limited resources of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs could be used to support this pilot initiative.

Our focus with this pilot scheme was to facilitate a limited number of the groups who already operate under the rural transport programme to run an evening and night service and to have the opportunity to look at the impact on the ground of meeting the needs of night time services in rural Ireland. The pilot service, even though operated in seven areas only, has allowed rural dwellers to get involved and participate in various activities in the evening that they may not have had the opportunity to in the scheme's absence.

The seven groups who have operated the pilot scheme were: West Cork Rural Transport; Avondhu Development Group in East Cork; Meath Accessible/Kilnaleck Community Cavan; County Sligo Leader Partnership; Tumna Shannon Development Company Roscommon; Síob Teoranta Donegal; and Laois Trip.

The Department will have provided funding of approximately €950,000 from the commencement of the pilot scheme in early summer 2007 up to 10 July next when the pilot will cease. The experience of my own Department in operating the pilot scheme, in conjunction with Pobal, who also manage the rural transport programme, has been that it has had a beneficial impact and has been endorsed by those involved in rural transport.

That is why, in the context of the pilot scheme coming to an end on 10 July next, the Minister recently met with representatives of the groups involved with the pilot scheme and with Pobal. At this meeting the groups' experiences of operating the pilot evening scheme was discussed. It discussed how it might be incorporated into the rural transport programme going forward.

There is to be further examination of this issue at a follow-up meeting this week between the groups and Pobal. Of course, the challenge will be to deliver the services within existing resources, but I should emphasise that the rural transport programme gives flexibility for the groups to identify the priority transport needs of their own areas, in terms of routes, frequency and timing of services. Neither the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, nor the Minister for Transport seeks to tell the groups what services they should provide; this is something into which they have a strong input.

Overall, Deputy Ó Cuív is glad to see the further consideration that evening services are now getting within the rural transport programme, following on from the pilot he was able to fund. Historically, services under the rural transport programme have been generally delivered between morning and late afternoon to reflect local needs prioritisation with the available resources. The Minister understands that some groups provide evening services within the rural transport programme and he would welcome changes that would further extend the service to evening-night time routes where this is both needed and possible.