Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 July 2020
182. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the geographical units used regarding investment by his Department; and the transport co-ordination unit investment delivered in each of these geographical units for the past five years. [14962/20]
View answerI understand that this Question is a follow up to the Deputy's Question on 16 June (PQ 10972/20 ref 848), which related to funding for the 15 Transport Coordination Units (TCUs) nationwide, also known as Local Link Offices.
As my predecessor advised the Deputy in his reply on 16 June, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport, and it is the National Transport Authority (NTA) which has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally. The NTA also has national responsibility for integrated local and rural transport, including management of the Rural Transport Programme (RTP) which now operates under the Local Link brand.
My Department provides aggregate funding for Local Link services to the NTA, which in turn allocates the funding to the individual TCUs. The TCUs manage the day to day requests for, and delivery of, public transport services. The funding from my Department is primarily current funding with a small amount of capital funding. My Department does not provide any Local Link funding directly to individual TCUs.
I understand that the NTA replied to the Deputy on 29 June explaining that it allocates funding to individual TCUs, rather than on a county by county basis. In addition, the NTA provided the Deputy with details of the funding for all 15 TCUs for the period 2015-2019.
