Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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91. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to ensure that the senior citizens of Inishowen may avail of free travel in the same way that their contemporaries can all over the country by providing funds to a company (details supplied) in County Donegal under the free travel scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39871/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The free travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for approximately 800,000 people, elderly, disabled and carers, at an annual cost of €77 million.Funding for the free travel scheme was capped by the previous Government in the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014. To implement this cap on funding during a time in which passenger numbers have been increasing each year the Department has had to impose a freeze on the amounts paid to companies and a complete restriction on the admittance of new companies or routes to the scheme. This has included new companies taking over previously extant routes. Given the increasing number of recipients and the funding pressures, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and I established an interdepartmental working group to examine and report on the current operation and future development of the free travel scheme. I expect to receive the final draft of the review shortly.

The Government made clear in the “Statement of Government Priorities, 2014-2016” that we are committed to the full retention of the Free Travel Scheme. I appreciate the importance of the scheme to customers, particularly pensioners, and am aware of the implications for travel pass holders in those areas where services have been withdrawn. I have therefore asked officials in the Department to examine ways in which companies could be admitted to the free travel scheme, initially where they are taking over routes for which free travel funding was previously available, including in Donegal, and thereafter on other routes with licensed passenger services.