Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 30: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the progress to date on the abolition of all peak time restrictions under the free travel scheme (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17671/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The free travel scheme permits a recipient to travel free on most CIE public transport services, Luas and a range of services offered by a large number of private operators in various parts of the country. A pensioner can also travel for free on cross border journeys between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There are currently circa 640,000 customers in receipt of the free travel scheme at an annual cost of some €58.3 million.

Peak time access restrictions apply on Dublin Bus and on Bus Éireann provincial city services in Cork and Limerick. The restrictions are imposed from Monday to Friday between 7am and 9.00am and from 4.30pm to 6.30pm. There are also restrictions on Friday evening travel from 4pm to 7pm within a 20 mile radius of Dublin, Cork and Limerick cities. The operators who apply these restrictions have advised that they do so mainly because of pressure on bus capacity at peak commuter times.

With the agreement of the relevant operators, the Department issues unrestricted passes permitting free travel at peak times to certain customers with disabilities, primarily for the purposes of attending educational, long-term rehabilitative and therapeutic courses recognised by the Department. In addition, following negotiations with the Department, CIE, in exceptional circumstances, issues temporary unrestricted passes for a limited period of six to twelve months, to facilitate unavoidable hospital appointments.

The question of removing restrictions for all free travel passholders has been raised with CIE by my Department on a number of occasions and are being actively followed up. CIE officials have advised that an assessment is currently being undertaken by them in response to my Department's approaches. When I have the results of the assessment by CIE, I will further examine the scope for extending the current arrangements.