James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 294: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the plans in place to introduce a late night rural transport scheme to facilitate people in remote areas accessing cinemas and other places of entertainment to alleviate rural isolation. [27005/07]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, in many rural areas, there are no public transport services at night. While there are, in the more developed rural areas, either hackney or taxi services, these are at the discretion of the providers of these services and do not provide a guaranteed service to rural people.

It was against this background, therefore, that earlier this year I introduced a new evening transport service, on a pilot basis, to allow rural people to fully participate in the various activities — community, sporting and social — that take place in their areas. The new Scheme also aims to address the market failure that currently exists in this area.

The 34 groups currently delivering the Rural Transport Programme — operated by the Department of Transport — were invited to submit applications to be considered under my Department's new scheme. Following the appraisal of the proposals submitted, seven groups were selected to run the pilot Scheme, namely:

West Cork Rural Transport;

Avondhu Development Group in East Cork;

Meath Accessible/Kilnaleck Community Cavan;

County Sligo LEADER Partnership;

Tumna Shannon Development Company Roscommon;

Síob Teoranta Donegal; and

Laois Trip.

The annual budget for the pilot is €500,000. The first service commenced in June and service numbers and passenger numbers are expected to continue to increase throughout the remainder of the year.

Although still in the early stages, I understand that the services are being very well received by communities and passengers alike. Early indications are that older people, people with a disability and young people are particularly enthusiastic about the new services and new activities are being planned around the availability of services. My intention is to review the scheme after it has been in operation for 12 months and to consider its future in the context of the findings of that evaluation.