Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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264. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the steps he intends to take to ensure all rural bus services operated by Bus Éireann are maintained in view of the current difficult financial position of Bus Éireann. [14397/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I am fully aware of the important role the bus fulfils in ensuring public transport connectivity for rural communities. This Government has supported that role through the 11% cumulative increase I secured in Budget 2017 for both the Public Service Obligation (PSO) programme and the Rural Transport Programme. That increase means that in 2017 approximately €277million will be available to the National Transport Authority (NTA) to support these important programmes, which underpin the delivery of taxpayer funded bus services across rural Ireland. I have committed publicly to further increasing the funding of those programmes in the future as resources allow. Bus Éireann has benefitted from that increased funding for its PSO services and I have no doubt it will benefit again this year. So let's be clear, publicly funded bus services in rural Ireland are expanding and improving and that includes Bus Éireann's PSO network.

I have no doubt the Deputy is aware that across rural Ireland the publicly funded bus services are complemented by a huge range of privately operated bus services. These bus services are provided by operators under licence from the National Transport Authority pursuant to the Public Transport Regulation Act 2009, receive no taxpayer funding and operate on a commercial basis. Unlike the PSO network, commercial routes are decided by the operator with a view to a commercial return. In 2015 around 23 million people travelled on a commercial bus service, which represents approximately 9% of all public transport journeys that year.

I have repeatedly assured rural Ireland that the NTA has the statutory powers available to it to ensure continued public transport connectivity for communities who may lose services in cases where a commercial operator introduces service changes. In its recent response to proposed Expressway route changes announced by Bus Éireann, the NTA has utilised these statutory powers through for example announcing increased PSO services and amending the scheduling of existing rural transport services in order to address identified transport needs caused by the Expressway changes.