Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this very important issue. I am delighted the Minister of State is in the House. In the previous response the Minister mentioned strengthening connections in rural Ireland. Ring a Link is a three county project between south Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny. It fits the bill neatly for what the Minister is trying to do in reducing the number of rural transport outfits in the country. I agree there are far too many. Thanks to Fr. Gerard O'Connor, Fr. Pat Condon and others who championed the rural transport issue, we have one of the most successful schemes in the country. The Minister visited the headquarters and I am glad that he did. He knows what we have available. He also knows the initiatives we have taken, the line management, the staff, the drivers, the board members and the working group in south Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny. I happen to be the chairperson of the working group in south Tipperary. The Minister wants to amalgamate groups around the country, with which I agree, but we have a ready-made template for amalgamation in Carlow, Kilkenny and south Tipperary.

Ring a Link has made a bid to have north Tipperary included and it already offers services there, although not many. That is not our fault. We have state-of-the-art booking technology which can trace people to their front doors and which has the capability of communicating GPS messages to bus drivers.

There is a need for the three-county model to be retained, particularly as huge investments have been made in the bus fleet and in drivers and other staff, and because we now have a knowledge about what rural transport involves. We are entitled to a slice of the cake. An attempt was made via the McCarthy report to get rid of our model but we fought it off. However, we are obliged to make cuts of 7% and, despite the difficulties involved, we will deliver these next year. The template we have in place is a model for the remainder of the country. Removing south Tipperary from the equation and obliging it to put in place its own service would give rise to a significant cost because there would be a need to purchase new buses and booking technology, employ new drivers, etc. That would make a nonsense of what it is proposed to do nationally. Let us be honest about it. The Government is seeking amalgamations. We have not amalgamated but we want to extend the service to the entire county. We have no problem in that regard.

The old adage "Where Tipperary leads, Ireland follows," remains appropriate. This is a pilot project but it is ready made for adoption elsewhere. The Minister of State should forget the personality clashes between the two of us and the fact that he serves north Tipperary.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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There are no personality clashes between us. We get along fine.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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The process in respect of this matter should be transparent and open. The Minister of State should consider the proposals Ring a Link has submitted. On Sunday last, Ring a Link celebrated carrying 500,000 passengers since its inception. It caters for some 80,000 passengers each year - on a six-days-per-week basis - and 50% of these are individuals who avail of services in south Tipperary. As already stated, Ring a Link will cope with the 7% cut. However, why encourage further waste and create additional bureaucracy by establishing a new unit in Tipperary? I passionately believe that what is envisaged is wrong and that it will lead to a lack of services for the public. The proposed new unit will be unwieldy and will oblige us to cover old ground again. We already have a template in place. Representatives from the National Transport Authority were present at our celebration of 500,000 passengers, as was my dear friend the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan. The Minister, as ought to be the case, was very polite and nice to all concerned. The Minister of State has seen what Ring a Link is capable of delivering and he may rest assured that it can also deliver for north Tipperary. In fact, he will be delighted when we deliver the whole-county project. When Ring a Link celebrates carrying 1 million passengers in counties Tipperary, Carlow and Kilkenny, I am sure he will also be delighted.

I salute the board members and volunteers across the three counties for championing and delivering this service. When the service was launched a number of years ago, many letters were written to Ring a Link. One came from a passenger who lived in the back end of south Tipperary and who stated that being picked up at her front door and returned there after her trip was like someone opening up the gates of Mountjoy and releasing her. Ring a Link provides an excellent service. Why fix what is not broken? Ring a Link has provided a template for what should happen nationally.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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As already stated and as Deputy Mattie McGrath should know, there are never any personality clashes between us. I welcome the opportunity to deal with this matter.

In line with the commitment in the programme for Government, I have been actively working with all stakeholders over the past two years to ensure a viable long-term future for the rural transport programme, RTP. My overall aim has been to embed the RTP into the wider public transport system. As the Deputy stated, the previous Administration tried, by means of the McCarthy report, to close down rural transport. Of course, I completely dismissed that report.

At present, there are rural transport groups covering 36 geographical areas nationwide. In the main, these are managed voluntary management committees, which do a fine job. Each group has identified and met demands for transport in its area which had until then been largely unaddressed, and developed services that are relied upon by the people it serves. The staff and voluntary boards have devised innovative ways of obtaining scarce resources and deploying these in creative solutions in order to provide a much-needed service. However, arising from a value for money report, a number of other matters raised with me and the issue of the viability of a number of rural transport groups, the RTP has been changed in recent months, and I have published a significant report in this regard. We must ensure that in the future we will have a more complete and cost-effective transport service offering in rural areas which will better meet the transport needs of all. To that end, it was decided to assign national responsibility for the RTP to the National Transport Authority, NTA, with effect from 1 April 2012.

The value for money report identified a number of issues in respect of the overall value for money of the programme, the level of administration costs, inconsistencies in fare levels, the cost per service across the country and the lack of data and performance measures, as well as a range of other matters. It recommended organisational restructuring in order to achieve efficiencies and a better alignment of the 35 RTP groups with local authority structures. A process to determine the optimal structure for the delivery of rural transport from an efficiency and service perspective, involving consultation with key stakeholders, culminated in the NTA's report, Strengthening the Connections in Rural Ireland, which I am sure the Deputy has read. Central to the new national administrative structure is the establishment of 18 transport co-ordination units, TCUs, in place of the existing 35 groups. This represents the most suitable and efficient model because it will provide the appropriate critical mass of population and characteristics to sustain the running costs of each unit. A selection and appraisal process is currently under way in respect of the 18 TCUs. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on that matter. The final closing date for receipt of applications was 30 November. Only existing RTP groups were eligible to apply to become TCUs, which means that much of the experience and local links and knowledge will be retained in the new structure.

The TCUs, with their local knowledge, will be well placed to detail the routes and stopping points for services. They will also be involved in two other rural initiatives, which I am sure the Deputy supports - namely, the community care scheme and the proposed local area hackney licence scheme, in respect of which I have exerted pressure. This will make them the main point of contact for all transport provision in rural areas. For the first time ever, local authorities will have a role in the planning of rural transport services. Each county will be obliged to develop an annual transport plan and this will inform the NTA in assigning the appropriate remit to each TCU. This will create opportunities to develop greater area coverage, as well as integrating rural transport services with the HSE, school and other public transport services.

For the sake of clarity and in order to allay any fears for users of existing rural transport services, I wish to emphasise that services will be maintained at current levels for the foreseeable future, particularly as the TCUs are yet to get up and running; under the new structures there will continue to be flexibility to tailor services to each local area, and door-to-door and on-demand transport services will continue; and the community and voluntary sector will continue to play a central role in the new structures, with much stronger links to local government. This new structure will also encourage greater investment by transport providers in accessible buses and services. As much as possible, longer term contracts will be granted by the NTA to private operators via tendering arrangements that will encourage and reward greater investment in the provision of services with fully accessible buses.

The NTA has put in place formal consultation structures with the rural transport network in order to work through the many aspects of the transition to the new structure. It also invited all the RTP groups to attend an open meeting in Portlaoise on 10 October 2013 so that it might brief them on the application process for the TCUs and address their queries. The NTA will be working with all involved during the coming months to make the transition as smooth as possible. During the transition period, the NTA's priority is to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of existing RTP services. In this regard, its focus is on moving existing services into contracted services with the NTA.

I accept that change is taking place and that some people find change a cause for concern. I assure the Deputy and the many other Members of this House and the Seanad with an interest in rural transport that this is a very positive development. I come from a little village called Portroe and I would not be pushing this policy unless I believed in it. I am of the view that what is involved is absolutely right for the country.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I know where the Minister of State lives. I have not yet had a cup of tea in his house but I believe my brother has done so. I am very friendly with the Minister of State's mother. This is not personal.

The Minister of State is seeking to cut the number of groups from 36 to 18. We have a three-county structure in place and if this were followed across the board, there would only be eight or nine groups. I am not opposed to or frightened of change. The Minister indicated that local authorities will have a role. They have always had such a role. South Tipperary County Council, Carlow County Council and Kilkenny County Council have been supportive of our project. I was a member of my local council in the past. There is a working group which will be meeting on Monday next. Four or five members of South Tipperary County Council will be attendance at that meeting.

I welcome both the community car scheme and the local area hackney licence scheme and I look forward to the rolling out of both. However, what I am saying is that we already have a template in place and that the Minister of State should use it as an example for other areas in which difficulties have arisen. Ring a Link has made a bid for the local TCU, but so has north Tipperary. Why try to change the system and thereby be obliged to establish a new group in County Tipperary, purchase or lease new buses or hackneys, obtain new booking equipment and employ office staff? I acknowledge the efforts of the innovative manager of Ring a Link, Mr. Jackie Mealy, and his staff, most of whom work only on a part-time basis. Why try to reconstitute a system that already exists? I reiterate the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

The Minister of State wants it to be complete and cost-effective. Such a template is already in place and it also provides value for money. Many of the schemes in place in other counties are run by volunteers who are doing a great job with limited funding.

We have costed every journey made in the Ring a Link scheme. Of the 500,000 trips taken, 50%, or 250,000, were in south Tipperary. We would love, when 1 million trips have been taken, to be able to state that 500,000 of them were taken in north and south Tipperary. We are ready, willing and able to embrace change. The establishment of a three-county project caused great trauma because we were not happy to join with counties Kilkenny and Carlow. We overcame these difficulties, however, through good volunteers and managed to get the scheme up and running. Problems arose with the Department and local bus companies resisted the project, but we withstood their resistance. A template is now in place and I ask the Minister of State to run with it. In hurling parlance, I ask him to shoot into the open goal rather than wide.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I compliment the Ring a Link group on the fine job it does. I visited the organisation's office previously. I do not believe I received an invitation to attend last week's celebrations. I will check with my office as I am open to correction in that regard.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I apologise if the Minister of State was not invited.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I am aware of the organisation's success and its contribution to the area. It does a fine job and I am sure some of its work will be replicated and used elsewhere. I have no doubt there are other examples of good practice among rural transport programme groups, which will also be replicated. It has been decided, in consultation with the National Transport Authority, to establish a TCU in County Tipperary. Given that the county now has one local authority and vocational education committee and that Deputy Mattie McGrath and I will soon share a constituency, I am surprised the Deputy is concerned about a proposal to join north, mid and west County Tipperary with the south of the county to address its transport needs. This is the appropriate approach.

Ring a Link does a fine job not only in County Tipperary but also in meeting transport needs in counties Carlow and Kilkenny. Extensive services are required across all transport co-ordination unit. It is not appropriate for me to discuss where TCUs will be provide services or where their offices will be based, as these decisions are part of an ongoing process. In my view, the solution proposed for the county Deputy McGrath and I represent is the optimal one for the county. Many areas of County Tipperary are not covered by rural transport services. Some form of realignment is required across the county to ensure these areas are considered for a service. Under the model the Deputy is advocating, many areas would not have access to services.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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That is not true.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I do not know how his model would work. From an integration point of view, the transport co-ordination units must work closely with the relevant local authority. I accept the Deputy's point on Ring a Link and its work with local authorities, but that approach is not evident nationwide. The services have been integrated for this reason.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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We have a model in place.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We must also address community care services and the need for an on-demand and consistent hackney service in rural areas which meets requirements in areas such as insurance, about which I have concerns. A consistent structure is needed and the transport co-ordination units that are in the process of being established will develop such a structure. As the process for integrating the units is in train, it would not be appropriate for me to discuss them in detail. The proposal to have a single TCU for County Tipperary is the best option and, as a Deputy from Tipperary, I would be seriously concerned if Deputy McGrath were to oppose it.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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It will set us back six years.