Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 283: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason funding can not be made available to private transport providers in order to subsidise the cost of bus travel for persons attending cancer care treatment from the Kerry region. [18902/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The current free travel scheme operated by the Department provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. These include road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, as well as Luas and services provided by over 90 private transport operators.

The free travel scheme is based on using spare capacity on existing conventional public transport services. The scheme is not intended to support specialist hospital transport.