Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cé go bhfuil eagar á dhéanamh ar na pearsain atá sa Rialtas, ní fheicim go bhfuil morán athrú ar an bpolasaí, ach beimid ag súil leis na hAirí agus na hAirí Stáit nua isteach go bpléifimid na rudaí seo leo.

I would like to have a debate with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, to address two mistakes made by his predecessors. One concerns the rural transport programme, particularly as it operates in Connemara. Under the new set-up, local offices will be relocated from Connemara to a more central location. This is a mistake and those who run the service think so too. A review was carried out under the previous rural transport programme under which the move was mooted. An expert was sent to drive from Cleggan to Portumna to see how big County Galway was and said it was ludicrous to merge the rural transport programmes in the area.. I am sure there are similar instances across the country. We need to address the issue and reverse the decision to centralise the rural transport programme under local authorities.

Galway is experiencing a boom because of the arts festival and the film fleadh and the race festival is coming up. One of the issues that has been raised a number of times is that of taxi drivers. A huge number of people come into the city and those who play by the rules tell me that a number of rogue taxi drivers are coming into the city with little regulation under the new regime. The branding to do away with double jobbers is not working. The branding and stickers on the sides of taxis make taxi drivers a target at night. The homes of a number of taxi drivers have been broken into and their families put at risk. They are concerned that they are targets for thieves. We need to address this mistake. We raised these issues when the legislation was introduced. Cars more than ten years old, even if they are in pristine condition, must be replaced. The provision which enables taxi drivers to pick up passengers willy-nilly, not at official taxi ranks but wherever crowds may be gathered, is putting bona fide taxi drivers out of business, this is a time when they need to make money to keep them going through the winter. If we cannot have a debate before the recess, perhaps the Leader might intervene with the Minister to have the issue addressed.