Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Ormonde for sharing time. This issue affects the area in which I live in south west Donegal, a very rural area. The scheme introduced several years ago by the late Seamus Brennan who was then Minister for Transport was initially a pilot initiative to fill a gap between private and public transport providers in rural areas.

This debate arises from the McCarthy report which advises that €11 million would be saved if the scheme ceased. I and some colleagues attended a public meeting in Donegal at which approximately 450 people, the users and some of the operators of the rural transport scheme, were present. The theme at the meeting was that many of those who avail of the service do not have access to private or public transport and do not own cars. If the rural transport initiative was not available to them they would not be able to go to the post office to collect their pensions and do all the things that other Members spoke of.

The McCarthy report states "The availability of private sector bus alternatives, the high level of car ownership and the under-utilisation of synergies with other publicly-funded local transport services support the view that the level of direct Exchequer assistance can and should be eliminated particularly in light of current budgetary circumstances". I find it hard to accept that recommendation because this initiative was part of the Government's commitment to rural development. Cities such as Dublin, and towns, have bus corridors and public and private bus operators because it is economically viable for them to operate. This scheme was put in place because it was not economically viable for private operators to provide a service in rural areas where there was a need.

I commend my colleagues for tabling this important motion. I worked with Deputies from other parties who attended the meeting in Donegal and we shared the view that we need to try to protect this service. It is, however, only a recommendation in the McCarthy report and will save only €11 million of the total €5.3 billion savings outlined there. In the overall scheme it is not a great deal of money.

We must protect that service. I am strongly of the view that there should be no cutback in the rural transport service, including the evening service. I raised that issue here in July when we debated the extension of the evening service after 10 July because the funding made available in 2007 was due to expire on that date. The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs extended the service to the end of the year. I hope the rural transport and evening rural transport initiatives will run in tandem from next January and will not be cut.

We are protecting vulnerable people. The person sitting in the Mercedes does not avail of this service, but the person with the medical card or the pension book who needs access to the post office maybe to send a letter to a relative or friend does. He may need to go into the village. The postman is often the only person with whom many of those people communicate daily or bi-daily unless they can communicate with others by using this service to get to the village. If we are sincere about implementing a rural development strategy this service must be kept. McCarthy should have considered other areas if he wanted to recommend cutting expenditure on public transport. He could perhaps have found efficiencies in Dublin Bus without affecting the most vulnerable on the western seaboard who avail of this service.

Some of the other recommendations in the report affect other aspects of rural development, for example, the proposal to terminate the role of the Western Development Commission and transfer its functions to Enterprise Ireland, and the termination of the Clár programme over the next three years. Accountants and people in Dublin 4 may be able to write recommendations and find efficiencies and some of the contents of the McCarthy report make sense but proposals such as this make no sense to people living in rural Ireland, particularly in light of the small sum of money involved in this critical service. I support my colleagues' views.

These, however, are only recommendations contained in a report drawn up by an outside, so-called expert. The Government is scrutinising them and it will be the Government and politicians who will implement some of those recommendations if any are to be implemented. Having talked to the Ministers for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and Transport I am confident they are cognisant of the reality in rural Ireland and the necessity to keep this scheme and to ringfence the small sum of money available to it.