Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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169. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated amount it would cost to award travel passes to persons who do not qualify due to means; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19139/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The current free travel scheme 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 80 private transport operators. There are currently approx. 908,000 customers with direct eligibility with an annual allocation of €90 million.

There is no means test for the Free Travel Pass. Rather, there are a number of schemes, such as State pensions, Invalidity Pension and Disability Allowance, which entitle the beneficiaries to the card as a secondary benefit. Some of these schemes have a means-test, and others do not. There is no way for my Department to know how many additional people would qualify, for example, for a Disability Allowance if there was no means test, and so the numbers of people who would benefit from such a move is impossible to state.

Even if it was possible to know how many people would be in that category, the estimated full year cost of providing free travel passes to people in those circumstances would be impossible to estimate with accuracy. Any such cost would manifest itself in the form of requests for increased funding by transport providers, based on increased numbers using the scheme on their service, and so would depend on a number of factors including the type of travel pass issued (e.g., single or companion pass), the number of journeys made using the free travel pass, the prevailing fares, and the type of journeys undertaken, i.e., rail, bus or Luas.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.