Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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147. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if arrangements will be put in place to ensure persons fleeing the war in Ukraine are able to exchange their driving licence for an Irish driving licence; the other measures that are intended to support their transport needs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21011/22]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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My colleague Minister Ryan signed the Road Traffic (Recognition of Foreign Driving Licences) (Ukraine) Order 2022 into law on 22 April 2022. This means a person with temporary residence in Ireland, because of the conflict in Ukraine, can exchange their Ukrainian driving licence for an Irish licence. The licence will be valid for 12 months and will be for cars only.

My Department and the National Transport Authority (NTA) will provide emergency public transport services to Ukrainian refugees placed in rural locations. To facilitate this, a series of network improvements, identified through the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan public consultation, will be accelerated to support increased overall demand for public transport services. Improvements will include additional stops, route modifications and more services, to increase connectivity for those based outside bigger towns and cities. This acceleration serves a dual purpose, by catering for existing demand and responding to the increased pressures on services where the local population has grown in response to the humanitarian crisis.

In addition, to support Ukrainian refugees housed away from existing public transport services, the NTA will provide supplementary transport connections to local centres, to enable better access to a range of amenities and to onward public transport connections.

Further, free travel is being provided for newly arrived Ukrainian refugees on any Public Service Obligation (PSO) or Local Link public transport service, from port of entry to their end destination. This initiative is being applied across all PSO contracted services, including commercial bus services included in emergency PSO contracts, and those services that are part of the emergency commercial bus operator grant scheme. The situation is being monitored on an ongoing basis. To avail, intending passengers should present the driver/relevant operator employee with the following:

- Ukrainian passport or other Ukrainian government issued ID and evidence of arrival in Ireland within the previous seven days, such as an airline booking email or boarding card stub, or

- confirmation of status from a coordinating group or charity involved in the Ukrainian crisis.