Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Glacaim an-bhuíochas leis na Seanadóirí ar fad a ghlac páirt sa díospóireacht as díospóireacht thar a bheith dearfach a bheith ann.

I thank all the Senators for their contributions to this very constructive debate. I would like to clarify a number of issues. This was a pilot scheme in seven areas. We must have services available in rural transport morning and evening according to need across all areas where there is no existing public transport service. The only way of doing that into the future is through one rural transport scheme. The idea that in the long term one Department be responsible after 6 p.m. and another before 6 p.m. leads to administrative inefficiencies.

I am out of money, because I am using the money I have in that fund, which is not as great, for other purposes. However, I am receiving great support from my colleague, the Minister for Transport, and Pobal. I pay tribute particularly to the chief executive of Pobal, Mr. Denis Leamy, for trying to ensure the continuation of the bus services needed. The Department of Transport has ensured flexibility so that areas that never had the rural evening transport and which were not in the original seven, can elect to have those services at night.

We did not put in €900 million per year, but less than €500 million per year, based on the figures I have here. The question is whether that €500 million is in the system and I believe it is. That is why I mentioned overhead costs. Because the night service was piggybacking on an existing service, the overhead cost was 10%. I capped it at 10% and told them to do it at no more than that.

I also laid down a minimum fee for those without free travel pass. I said I would not go into this "béal bocht" syndrome which often deprived rural people of services. If one got a taxi any distance in the city here one would pay €5 and not mind but be glad the service was there. Similarly in many cases in rural Ireland the issue is not the money but the lack of service. For many people who go out at night, to pay €10 — €5 there and €5 back — for public transport would be neither here nor there in a night. The challenge is that there is nothing to get one from here to there no matter what one would pay for it, apart from a taxi out from the town at enormous cost. The minimum €5 fare each way for those with no free travel pass caused no difficulty.

I see us being able to continue these services because the main rural transport scheme has the overhead costs to which I alluded. In the way it is organised I have no doubt there are ways of justifying it. One of the problems in Ireland is that if one highlights an issue people think it is a personal criticism. We have seen in Departments this year that when we had to cut the overheads, although we all felt they were fairly well managed up to now, there were ways to do so.

An obvious question is whether we really need Rural Transport Initiative offices and staff who are totally separate from the partnerships. As everybody in the Seanad knows I have been working on this for a long time. Would this fit in with the existing partnerships we have established around the country? They could all be hosted in one office and we could save on rent, overheads, management and financial control. People will come up with 100 reasons that will not happen, such as jobs, but are these services there to give employment or to provide services to people?

It reminds me of the railway line that runs trains at hours in which nobody is interested in travelling. There are plenty of station masters and porters but they see customers as an unnecessary inconvenience. We have had much of that syndrome in this country over the years. Are we driven by the concept that the whole idea of a service is to get the maximum usage for the maximum number of people who need the service? It is a valid question and one to which we must open our minds.

Over the total ball of wax there for rural transport, I have no doubt that if there is a will for these night time services there is a way. Pobal is committed to working with the groups involved and other groups around the country to ensure if they are willing to work with them, and I have no doubt they will, the groups will be able to maintain these services. However, if people put their heads in the sand and claim they need to keep everything as it is, including overheads and everything else, and they need to get more money, it will not be possible to do it. It is not only a question of the Minister having the will. I believe it is possible to do it and Pobal knows it is possible. Rather than getting involved in this customary argument that we cannot consider flexibility and change — it did not happen in the House today — we need the rest of the people to find better ways of doing it to maintain the quality of service and expand it. I believe we can maintain the services.

I apologise to Senators for not making a copy of the report available to them. I will make sure each Senator is given a copy. It contains interesting statistics. The cheapest group per head was Síob-MFG which carried 5,590 passengers. Its fare income was tiny at €1,030. However, it managed to do it at a cost per passenger journey of €1.40, which is very relevant because Senator Ó Domhnaill said people were very happy with that service. However, it needed virtually no subsidy. Even though it was carrying very few passengers it was doing it in a very efficient way.

Avondhu carried 13,000 passengers with a fare income of €10,000. It cost it €2.63. Tumna is a bit like MFG. It carried 2,723 passengers and had €2,824 of fare income. However, the cost per passenger was €12.95. Comparing Tumna with Síob, it is hard to justify one costing €12.95 and the other €1.40. Senator Ó Domhnaill would claim that west Donegal is not so densely populated and that would explain the difference. Similarly West Cork Rural Transport carried 10,000 passengers — not radically different from Avondhu with 13,000. However, it cost €11 per journey to carry them. When Senators get the report they will see the figures. There may be reasons behind the figures. If we were running the scheme again or if it ever transferred to the Department of Transport or Pobal, I would place a limit on the cost per passenger. If people are told to allow for 10% overheads, they live with it. If they are told they are limited to a fixed amount per passenger they will live with it. To a certain extent we must always devise schemes in a way that encourages efficiency and good operation and does not encourage operators to run up enormous costs to justify an ever-increasing subsidy, which has been one of the mistakes in the past.

A number of bodies issued statements without ever contacting my Department to find out what was happening. Funnily enough, they are organisations funded by my Department. Rural Link issued a big statement without having checked with us as to what we were doing. Age Action Ireland issued a statement. While they may have contacted the Department, neither group contacted me to find out what arrangements we were being put in place to keep this going.

I assure Senators that I take on board the very good points made. We all need to get our heads around this, including the delivery groups and Pobal. It is very simple to say that more for less makes considerable sense because ultimately we have two choices. Given that money is tight, we could proportionately cut every service or decide there is a better way of providing the equivalent or almost equivalent service with less money by looking at ways of doing things more efficiently. Unfortunately the debate in the media is hyped up on cutting the money rather than what we are doing about the service.

I will not stray into the realms of the Department of Transport, except to say that a number of Senators mentioned the State bus company. Regarding rural services, people mentioned post offices and so on. Time and again as Minister with responsibility for rural development I have said that if our only focus is on something that does not have a demand because a service is not what the people now want rather than providing the services in rural areas where there is a demand and which people actually want, instead of doing a service we will do a disservice. The service will disappear anyway and we will not have pushed for the replacement service. I will give a simple example. If people in rural areas were given the choice between telephone kiosks and broadband, I believe they would all go for broadband. Young and old people have mobile phones in their pockets. I am told there is more than one mobile phone per head of population and kiosks are not used every day. They might all sign a petition to prevent a kiosk being removed. When a kiosk was being removed from my parish, I rang Eircom and the person to whom I spoke was very nice about it. However, I was asked if I realised that three telephone calls were being made from that phone box each week. I admit I was somewhat chastened as I should have been — although it left the box there.

In fighting for rural areas it is important to realise that people living there are very modern and adaptable. The Peig Sayers view of rural areas is doing considerable damage. We are talking in rural areas about a modern get-up-and-go people who are organised. They are very quick to adapt to all of the new technology. Therefore we should focus on the things they really need and not on those things that might remain as a historical legacy like the 10 o'clock bus that would not take any commuter to work wandering across the countryside. In working with Pobal and my colleagues to review the scheme, with the money available for rural areas I will be focusing on ensuring we provide the services at the best cost we can with the least subsidy possible that service the needs of the maximum number of people.

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghlacadh leis na Seanadóirí. Díospóireacht an-mhaith a bhí ann. Déanfaidh mé cinnte go bhfaighfidh chuile Sheanadóir cóip den tuarascáil le go mbeidh siad in ann breithiúnas a dhéanamh iad féin. Deimhním anseo go bhfuil sé i gceist agam gach ar féidir liom a dhéanamh le déanamh cinnte go leanfaidh seirbhísí oíche, ach gur faoin bpríomh scéim iompar tuaithe a bheidh siad seachas faoi scéim phíolótach.