Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 June 2005
24 Mr. McHugh asked the Minister for Transport if he will put in place a rural transport service to cover the north-east Galway region to enable elderly persons with no transportation of their own to be provided with transport to local towns and services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21489/05]
View answerMy Department is funding the provision of public transport in rural areas on a pilot basis through the operation of the rural transport initiative, RTI. The RTI has been operating since 2002 and, under it, funding is made available to 34 community organisations throughout the country to provide local transport services. It is not proposed to expand the number of projects pending the conclusion of the pilot phase of the RTI at the end of 2006. I have already announced that from that date I intend to put the scheme on a permanent footing. The RTI makes a daily difference to the lives of thousands of people and it is for this reason I have put it on a permanent financial footing.
Area Development Management Limited administers the RTI on behalf of my Department. ADM and the individual RTI groups are solely responsible for all the operational aspects of the initiative, including the areas to be served by transport, and neither my Department not I have any role in these matters.
This year I have allocated €4.5 million for the RTI, which is a 50% increase on the allocation for 2004. This should allow individual RTI groups to make some modest expansion of services in some areas. The provision in 2006 will be €5 million. This will bring the total national development plan, NDP, provision to more than €18 million, compared with the original NDP commitment of €4.4 million.
In the period up to the end of 2006 my Department will engage in a wide-ranging consultation process to seek proposals for a permanent structure for the RTI. In developing these proposals I will pay further attention to the transport needs of rural communities such as those to which the Deputy referred.
I thank the Minister for his reply. However, it does not give hope to the thousands of rural people who do not have a transport service. Will the Minister admit that the service as currently constituted is unsatisfactory and discriminatory in the sense that it covers some rural areas but not others. To put it mildly, it is unsatisfactory that one person might have a service while a neighbour might not. It is also discriminatory given that a free travel scheme is in place but rural residents cannot avail of it, which is wrong.
While the Minister's party gets much support from rural areas, it does not treat those areas well by not ensuring the service is available for use by everybody, not just a select few. For example, a transport initiative is in place to cover part of my constituency of Galway East but a large chunk of the constituency has no service. I do not understand why it will take a total of three years before the Minister reviews the scheme. As a pilot project, why was it not run for one year to assess its operation before making an evaluation and developing proposals to put it on a permanent footing?
The Minister may not be aware that some people in rural Ireland live in a tunnel of loneliness and isolation because they have no contact with others for weeks at a time. If they had a transport service, they could avail of it, perhaps for weekly trips to a local town to do shopping, meet people and have some contact with others.
Does the Minister have the will to take this on now rather than waiting for 2006? The scheme has proved itself and the Minister and his officials have enough experience of it to make a judgment as to how to move forward. There is no need to wait until 2006. It is unfair on rural people who do not have a service to drag the process out for another year and a half.
This is one of the most successful schemes ever introduced here. I have taken the time to assess it, having viewed its operation, met those who use it and travelled on the buses. Shortly after I came into office, many Deputies persuaded me of the value of the scheme. I was strongly persuaded it should be made permanent and provided with increased funding, given its huge impact, as the Deputy rightly noted, on the lives of many who are isolated in rural Ireland and unable to access services, meet friends, travel into towns and feel part of everyday living. The service has clearly transformed lives, as all its users I met have told me.
In response to what colleagues and those who use the service said, I increased the budget by 50% this year. Nothing like this was done in any other area. I have further indicated what the figure will be next year. Despite an original commitment of €4.4 million for the total period, we will have spent €18 million. It would be wrong to state there is not a huge a commitment to this initiative.
All the groups involved have responded positively to my announcement because they now have certainty on what will happen this year, certainty in their budgeting for next year and certainty that the scheme will become permanent. In the meantime, we are talking to all the different groups involved to ascertain the best structure for a fully rolled-out permanent scheme throughout the country. I would like every part of rural Ireland to be able to avail of this service, which is the object of the exercise.
Some 35 schemes are in operation at present. They are well funded and delivered approximately 65,000 RTI transport services last year, totalling more than 500,000 passenger trips. The impact is very significant and we will do more. There are two successful schemes in County Galway, one in Bealach in Connemara and the other in south-east Galway. We would like to have these schemes extended not just to Deputy McHugh's area but to other parts of the country, and we are well on track to achieve this. All the organisations involved have thanked me for what I have done and for allowing them the timeframe in which to maximise the work of the schemes.
Some of the schemes work extremely well in that almost the entire budget goes into the service. In some schemes the proportion of the budget that goes into the administration is high relative to the amount that goes into the service. This concerns me and I do not think it is necessary. Some people have tried to set up large organisations to run this while others have shown me how this can be run in a cost efficient manner in co-operation with the local authorities. More services can be obtained because the more money that is put into services, rather than administration, the more one benefits. I want to look at why this has happened in some areas so we can maximise the money to the benefit of the customer.
What exactly does the Minister mean when he says he will put the initiative on a permanent financial footing from 2007? Is he referring to the initiative as it currently exists, or will those areas still be without a service? Does he mean there will be blanket coverage?
That is a good question. That is why I have asked the groups what they want. The one thing that is certain is that this scheme will not end. This was tried as a pilot scheme and it will now be a permanent scheme for the entire country. It will not be limited to those which have it currently. I want to look at how we can expand it around the country and make the most of it.
