Dáil debates

Thursday, 12 November 2020

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Rural Transport Services

11:50 am

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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12. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will consider the expansion of the Local Link and Rural Link bus services to reduce isolation for persons living in rural areas. [33153/20]

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Will the Minister agree to expand the Local Link bus services, which are essential for getting people out of private cars in rural areas? That means developing an integrated national transport service in which routes and timetables are integrated with other public bus and train services. At the moment these services are quite successful but there is only one Local Link office for every two counties so we need a massive expansion.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The NTA has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public transport services nationally. The NTA also has national responsibility for integrated local and rural transport, including management of the rural transport programme, which operates under the Local Link brand. From a policy perspective, there is a need for a fundamental change in the nature of transport in Ireland and the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future commits to making public transport and active travel better and more accessible.

The Deputy will probably be aware that my Department has already been undertaking a review of sustainable mobility policy, which incorporates a review of public transport in rural areas. In this context, the Department held a public consultation process between November 2019 and February 2020, and included a stakeholder event in the course of that consultation. Over 250 submissions were received as part of this consultation process and I published a report on it last week. I intend to develop a new policy framework for the next ten years that can provide a strategic backdrop to the increased investment planned by this Government across the sustainable mobility programme. The new policy statement will be informed by the review of the previous policy framework, known as Smarter Travel, and submissions received during my Department's consultation process. Other stakeholders' views will also be taken into account. This will provide a platform to advance the ambitions of the programme for Government in the area of sustainable travel, and will replace the previous Smarter Travel policy from 2009. Our programme for Government commitments on public transport in rural areas will be progressed in the context of that new policy statement.

Among the measures we will prioritise are a sustainable rural mobility plan to ensure settlements over a certain size can connect to the national public transport system, expanding the Local Link rural transport service and prioritising public transport projects that enhance regional and rural connectivity. Meanwhile, the NTA has undertaken a nationwide study to inform its approach to rolling out improved public transport across the country in areas, excluding the greater Dublin area, regional cities and large towns, by providing better connections between villages and towns and linking them with an enhanced regional network connecting cities and regional centres. Arising from this study, I am advised that the NTA is starting on a two-phase consultation on its proposals, entitled Connecting Ireland. This will begin with local authority officials and other key stakeholders engaging on the main concepts of Connecting Ireland, and will then be followed by a wider public consultation on the proposals in the second quarter of 2021.

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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These services are vital as they connect people who live in relatively isolated areas to the main public transport links. They are absolutely essential. They are, by definition, low-volume services and therefore are not particularly profitable. That is a problem with the entire model of how the NTA is doing this, by contracting services for which private operators like Go-Ahead Ireland can bid. That model means these services, which we need in order to get people out of cars and to counteract isolation, are not necessarily provided.

An integrated public transport system, which is genuinely public, will develop these low-volume rural services in a context in which the revenue from the high-volume routes can be used to cross-subsidise the low-volume routes. Does the Minister agree there is a problem with this model of private contracting out of the routes?

12:00 pm

Photo of Darren O'RourkeDarren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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During the previous Priority Questions, I raised the issue of a route the NTA part-funded and also provided school bus transport. There is a solution on the table that will serve the rural communities of Skreen, Walterstown and Kentstown and will also provide for those schoolchildren left without school bus transport since September. Will the Minister support the proposal from Flexibus? It will serve a rural community and those schoolchildren left without a service.

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I raised that issue with officials who came back to me that there is an issue. While I do not have a final resolution, I will commit to come back again on this as a solution has to be found for the students in question.

I agree with Deputy Paul Murphy on the importance of Local Link. I also believe in public transport and public service companies delivering it. However, that does not have to be to the complete exclusion of other operators. From my experience as a passenger using a range of different public transport coach operators, they provide a good service. They are local and often good community businesses. I agree it has to be a public system designed for the public good. We cannot allow transfer pricing along the way, as the Deputy suggested, where people cherry-pick routes. That can be done in a way that does not exclude the many good companies involved in providing public transport.

Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.