It is my policy that all bus and rail transport operators, and in particular the State owned transport companies, should provide the highest possible degree of accessibility within the overall resources available to them. In accordance with the national development plan, all buses purchased by both Bus Átha Cliath and Bus Éireann since 2000 for use on urban services are low floor and wheelchair accessible.
In pursuing this policy almost 35% of the Dublin Bus city fleet and some 35 bus routes in Dublin now have fully accessible services. Following a comprehensive bus replacement programme in recent years, Bus Éireann's entire regular urban fleets in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford are low floor wheelchair accessible vehicles. In addition, the company has 20 low floor wheelchair accessible buses on a number of rural routes and has six low floor double deck buses on the Ashbourne-Dublin commuter route. Bus Éireann is continuing to monitor developments in relation to the design and manufacture of long distance coaches, which would improve the company's capacity to meet the needs of people with mobility impairments on their inter-urban services.
The DART and Arrow suburban rail services are wheelchair accessible over most of the network. I understand from Iarnród Éireann that all new rolling stock is designed to meet the most up to date accessibility standards. All DART carriages have the same floor height, which is 1,067 mm above rail level. However, depending on platform curvature, door positioning and the location at which the train stops, there can be variation in the height at which passengers transfer between the train and the station platform. Accordingly, some customers may require help in negotiating the gap at some stations.
