Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will extend the companion travel pass for persons in receipt of disability allowance to cover a companion on the portion of the round trip during which the disabled person may not be present. [49847/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The free travel scheme is currently available to all people living in the State aged 66 years or over, to carers and to customers under 66 who are in receipt of certain disability type payments. The scheme permits customers to travel for free on most CIE public transport services, LUAS and a range of services offered by up to 90 private operators in various parts of the country. Expenditure on this scheme has been frozen at €77 million since 2010. Certain customers, for medical reasons, may get a companion pass which allows any person over age 16 years to accompany them for free. Some 750,000 people have a free travel pass, including 86,000 with companion passes.

The proposal that companions should be able to travel for free without the qualifying person would add additional costs and would also be extremely difficult to control. I have no proposals to extend this scheme in this manner.