Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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1570. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will consider allowing hearses and mourning cars drive in bus lanes when conveying bereaved family members to and from the church and to the graveyard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37778/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Bus lanes were created, at some expense to the public, to provide on-street priority to bus-based public transport. The goal is to make bus services faster and more reliable, thereby attracting more people onto public transport, and reducing congestion and pollution.

Since the introduction of bus lanes, there have been numerous and repeated requests to my Department to allow different classes of vehicle to have access to the lanes. My predecessors and I have always rejected these requests. The reason is that allowing further classes of vehicle to use the lanes would undermine their efficiency for the purpose for which they were created. In addition, granting any one such request would make it more difficult to argue for rejecting the others, and cause further damage to the efficiency of the lanes. I therefore have no plans to extend the use of bus lanes to any further vehicles at this time.