Denis Naughten
Question:69. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Transport the steps he is taking to support public transport outside of the major urban centres; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44067/21]
View answerThursday, 16 September 2021
Questions (69)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
The last Government, after a lot of encouragement, designated Athlone as a major growth centre under Project Ireland 2040 and the town is expected to become a regional city over time. However, under this Government we have already seen a reduction in public transport connectivity between the local towns within its catchment and the town of Athlone itself, with the withdrawal of the Bus Éireann route 20 service just as the town's institute of technology secures university status. Where is the joined-up thinking?
There has been a substantial increase in funding for Local Link services since 2016, going from €12.2 million in 2016 to over €28 million in 2021, comprising rural transport programme, RTP, current and capital funding, Covid-related funding and PSO funding for rural regular services. The additional funding since 2016 has enabled the introduction of 85 new rural regular service routes, as well as improvements to demand responsive transport, DRT, services and the piloting of evening and night-time services in certain rural areas which have now been mainstreamed. The new rural regular services operate at least five times per day over a schedule of five, six or seven days per week. They are specifically designed to ensure connectivity with other public transport services and better linkage of services between and within towns and villages.
Bus Éireann operates a substantial PSO business under contract with the NTA, providing subvented bus services outside Dublin and in regional and rural locations throughout the country. It also has a separate, commercially-run business, Expressway, which operates a number of interregional bus routes.
The Covid-19 health emergency brought a profound and swift shock to the public transport sector. Public transport’s designation as an essential service throughout the pandemic means that although fare revenues have collapsed, most of the shortfall has been met by the Government in order to meet our broader policy objectives. In 2020, we spent over €620 million supporting PSO services. For 2021, over €670 million has been provided in funding in order to ensure the existing level of public transport services is kept. By comparison, the level of PSO and Local Link funding provided in 2019 was in the region of €300 million. Furthermore, in June 2020 the Government decided to introduce new, temporary financial support for certain licensed services provided by commercial bus operators to ensure the continued operation of these essential services.
That was the key joined-up thinking on maintaining, developing and broadening out public transport services for all parts of our country. As I told Deputy O'Rourke earlier, we must make sure we meet the needs of every different community and balance that funding throughout the country as we best can.
The hospital for the town of Athlone is Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe. There has been a 60% reduction in the number of buses facilitating patients and visitors attending Portiuncula as a result of the decision by the National Transport Authority not to replace the lost Bus Éireann services. An analysis of the current Citylink replacement service with that provided by Bus Éireann shows that, between 7.30 a.m. an 9.30 p.m., the service has gone from 226 buses a week to a current offering of just 84 buses a week outside Portiuncula. There is now a different bus stop, pick-up point and drop-off point in the town of Athlone for the connection services to the local hospital in Ballinasloe and for the other regional services that stop via Bus Éireann at Southern Station, the bus station in Athlone. There are now two different pick-up points in the town of Athlone. If someone has an appointment in Ballinasloe at 11 a.m. and they have to travel from Athlone, they must get the bus at 9 a.m. and spend an hour and a half waiting in Ballinasloe for their appointment.
The Deputy makes a valid point. I have met with local representatives for the area and had a series of discussions with my own officials to try to address the concerns. I have told them we need to look again at the very specific issue of Portiuncula Hospital and ensure that, as we change the overall route alignment, we maintain critical connectivity to those types of facilities. The NTA is charged with working with the local operators, Bus Éireann and others to ensure we address some of the concerns that have been raised. I will have to ask the Department for an update on that as it was not specifically asked for in the question as written. It is something we are very aware of and have been working on.
I thank the Minister and welcome his comments on that. I want to put on record that we will now see a development of health services in Portiuncula with the development of a new ambulatory care centre which will expand the outpatient services available there. Someone going from Roscommon town to Portiuncula for one of those appointments at, say, 11 a.m. will have to leave Roscommon town before 6 a.m. It would take that person four hours to get to Ballinasloe travelling from Roscommon town, into Galway city to the cathedral, then walking a kilometre over to the main bus station, then getting the Cork service to Oranmore and then a connection from there to Ballinasloe. There is a bus service going from Westport through Castlebar and Roscommon that terminates in Athlone. If that terminated in Ballinasloe, it would connect three hospitals together and the appointments could be organised around that.
The Deputy makes a good point. We are looking at a new strategy, connecting Ireland, which looks at developing rural bus transport systems. Critically, we want to achieve an efficiency where we can connect the transport needs to health facilities into that system and look at various solutions and options. We will have to be creative and connect our health and transport needs with our general public transport needs. Portiuncula could be one example of that as we make the amendments we need to make.