I move:
That Seanad Éireann:
notes that 40% of the population lives in rural Ireland;
notes that close to 40% of older people living in rural areas need transport, and that ‘free transport' has no real meaning for people who have very limited access to public transport;
notes that in 2010 the Joint Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs recommended an authority to organise rural transport schemes;
welcomes the Government initiatives on supporting rural transport and on developing an integrated programme for rural transport;
commends the Government for ensuring the introduction of integrated ticketing in Dublin public transport schemes; and
calls for the integrated rural transport system model to take account, over time, of the specific transport needs of older people in rural communities.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for taking this debate. Rural Ireland has much in common with large American cities where the car is king. Walking in American cities is a sure sign that one is a stranger or a tourist, and asking for information about the bus service is usually greeted with astonishment or laughter. The same could be said of rural Ireland, where walking is hardly an option for two very serious reasons. The increase in the number of cars has rendered roads less safe and the high speeds of many drivers has made walking unsafe on many local roads. Boy racers and agricultural machinery do not help, and some people try to speed on very narrow and poorly surfaced roads. They are a dangerous place for walkers.
The decline of many villages means that those who need to do business need to go further afield than their local village. We do not talk about walking as an option. Walking is now a form of exercise and not a mode of transport. The bicycle is the same for rural Ireland and is solely a form of exercise. Some people have even managed to bring bicycles indoors and watch television while cycling. Cars are the lifeline for rural communities and without doubt, the advent of cars brought much to rural Ireland. Like the roll-out of electricity to homes, cars meant that rural areas were connected easily to their local towns and to neighbouring cities, and people had an independence which they did not have previously. With the great tradition of community in rural Ireland, those who were first to get a car tended to become the local driver until more cars arrived and it became the norm for all households to have a car. There was a great sense of community built up around the car but, ironically, much of that has been lost.
In that great leap forward, some were left behind and inevitably those left behind were those with disabilities and the elderly. There are many different reports left on shelves in every Department but the transport and rural ageing report of 2010 published by the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland, CARDI, indicated that 37% of older people living in rural areas have a need for transport that is not being met by public or private means. That equates to thousands of older people. The report also indicated that 35% of households headed by a person over 65 have difficulty accessing public transport. That means more than three in every ten houses do not have access to transport, which is a significant figure. The research also showed that the average retired person spends as much as 57% of income on transport, which is an extraordinary figure. Is that because such people live in rural areas? The renowned Joseph Rowntree Trust in the UK carried out research confirming that transport is the major factor in the additional cost of living for pensioners living in rural communities.
We know two facts: that older people have less access to transport and end up spending more on transport than their urban counterparts. That is not surprising but it is worth stating in this debate. CARDI also showed that older people in rural Ireland with limited income are often persuaded to spend money on a taxi to complete a necessary trip to the hospital or doctor or to buy food or go to the post office. Those people find it very difficult to justify spending on a taxi for a social event. That is the heart of the argument about older people in rural Ireland.
We have seen too many pictures of how our older people are sometimes treated in hospitals, in care homes or in the home. We have all collectively argued, in this House and elsewhere, that such treatment cannot continue and that older people cannot and should not be treated so badly. What has forced us to this point is that we have seen the pictures on television. It is much more convenient to forget about older people isolated in rural communities, who are not seen very often. They may be able to look after themselves and be mobile but they face very long days and longer nights cut off from life, waiting for a lift or waiting for families and friends to take them somewhere. They are forced into being reliant and many people would rather not be a burden on others in asking for a lift. This is not simply because they do not want to be a nuisance but because they have pride and a memory that once they were mothers, fathers, workers, farmers and people who had a life and who were self-reliant.
To be reduced to asking for help — asking simply to be taken to the doctors, the shops or to collect a pension — hurts those people and reminds them of what they have lost. Those people do less, ask for less and seek the bare essentials such as going to the doctor or the hospital. This leaves people even more disconnected, and a disconnected quality of life has an impact on physical and mental health. Life is for living and it is essential that our older people live their lives to the fullest extent possible. Not being able to go anywhere, travel freely and have such choices has the most enormous impact on that quality of life.
We know about the cost of drugs, GP care, hospitals and the difficulties of finding appropriate care for older people. We know how stressful that is to pockets, people and to the HSE budget. Transport must be part of the care package for older people — keeping them mobile, engaged, connected with society and their communities where they were before the simple fact of age changed that, and most of all recognising that they are needed, that they are a valuable part of society and that we want older people to be part of society.
When the Minister with direct responsibility for rural transport was last in the House he talked about the importance of the rural transport programme and the need to integrate it. The rural transport programme was launched in 2006 following a pilot scheme. There are now 36 schemes operating across the country delivering services directly to the core base of older people and people with disabilities. These schemes use private transport and some have launched volunteer driving schemes. In my area the Leitrim Development Company uses some of its Pobal funding to run buses and to fund the voluntary rural lift scheme — where volunteer drivers take people to appointments and to the shops. In this case, the Leitrim Development Company provides training for volunteer drivers so that they understand how to manage and cope with older people getting in and out of cars and how to keep them safe. The work is basic and ordinary but is extraordinarily important. There is also the CLASP scheme in south-east Sligo and the County Sligo leader partnership project. We are well served with those schemes in the area. The importance of the schemes nationwide to older people must not be under-estimated. By and large they are run by people involved in the community and voluntary sector.
I accept that there is a need for greater efficiency. The schemes have only been up and running for five years. When one first sets up a scheme one might do it slightly less efficiently because that is not one's primary motivation. The main aim is to get the scheme up and running. Afterwards one discovers there are cheaper ways of doing it. I understand that the local integrated programme is proceeding. Avoiding duplication and reducing costs cannot be the sole reason for doing anything. We must continue to ensure that older people are central to any reorganisation of rural transport. It is not simply about getting people to hospital or to the GP. It must be about their life.
We must explore whether there are more imaginative ways of encouraging voucher use, perhaps not all the time — we do not need to have an endless booklet of them. Would it be possible to subsidise petrol for taxis involved in rural transport, as is the case sometimes in the UK? The IFA and the ICA are involved in some community schemes. Could they be involved in a national scheme to see whether, through their members, they could provide voluntary services? Could they be part of a taskforce focused on addressing the rural transport needs of elderly people at a time when money is not plentiful? In Northern Ireland, the Rural Transport Fund has organised a scheme which will allow a voucher of £100 for a group of 17 or more people travelling in one direction. That is a limited scheme for which one cannot keep applying — one cannot go to the same pub every week — but the system recognises that sometimes people would like to go out collectively and those special occasions are encouraged. In Bracknell Forest in the UK there is an integrated card scheme people use on buses that also allows them to use the library and the leisure centre. It reminds older people that they have a right to use those services and to be integrated. It recognises their role in society and their need to have access to those services.
I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Ring. I urge that in the context of rural transport we take seriously the needs of older people as people in the community. In particular, I thank those people across the country who have overcome many obstacles in terms of rural transport in the past five years and who continue to give great service, albeit on a limited basis. Without them, many people's lives would be much more limited than they are. The Department must consider a more creative way of finding other means to offer vouchers in all their guises to keep supporting older people in their communities.