Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join the female Senators who highlighted the cause of National Cervical Cancer Awareness Week and pointed out how easy it is to have early intervention. All I would add to what they said is that a smear test only takes five minutes and it could save a woman's life. The battle against cancer is always on. A smear test is a simple procedure and women should have it done regularly. I encourage women who are entitled to have a free smear test to avail of it.

I would also like to echo the call for the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, to come into the House. The hands-off approach he has adopted to the Bus Éireann crisis, which is looming and upon us, must stop. This company is in serious difficulty having sustained losses of €6 million a year. We face the prospect of bus drivers going out on strike and 22 Expressway routes are under threat. In the immediate term, if those bus drivers go out on strike, vital public transport to many areas of the country will not be provided. It is not today nor yesterday that people have begun to talk about the paucity of public transport in this country.

At this point the Minister must come into the House. I understand he is one step removed from the independence of Bus Éireann but we must have a proper debate on public transport because it seems to be a cyclical requirement. Our public transport system must be sustainable but it is clearly not sustainable at present. We have to put our money where our mouth is and have a public discourse on public transport and set out the standards that we require. For environmental reasons, the push is towards investment in public transport, yet we seem to lunge from one crisis to another.

In November a rail review commissioned by the National Transport Authority revealed there was a €103 million deficit in the rail service. One of its proposals is to shut down major passenger services serving places like Ballina and Westport, the part of the country I am from. We have four Expressway services and without them we would be lost. Even with this we do not even consider that we have a great public transport service.

There must be a big debate on public transport, otherwise we are only paying lip service in saying that the future goal in a progressive country like ours is to have a proper public transport service. Such talk is meaningless. The buck stops with the Minister, Deputy Ross. He should be here answering questions on public transport, allaying fears and we should not have the repeated threat services will be lost. There needs to be more than merely a reaction, there needs to be a proper plan for the future and not fire-fighting action on each and every occasion a crisis arises.