Area Development Management Limited, ADM, administers the rural transport initiative, RTI, on behalf of my Department and makes specific allocations to individual RTI projects from funding provided under my Vote. ADM has sole responsibility in deciding on the individual RTI allocations to each of the 34 groups funded under the scheme and neither I nor my Department has any function in the matter.
By the end of this year my Department will have provided €9 million for the RTI in the three years 2002-04. A full appraisal of the initiative was completed in July this year and in line with its principal recommendation, I recently extended the scheme for a further two years to end-2006.
There is a provisional allocation of €3 million for the RTI in the 2005 Abridged Estimates Volume. Before the Estimates are finalised, I hope to be in a position to increase that provision to take account of increases in operating costs of the projects involved. This will result in an overall funding commitment of at least €12 million for the RTI to end 2005 which compares very favourably with the total of €4.4 million earmarked for the RTI in the National Development Plan 2000-2006.
It should be borne in mind that the RTI projects also benefit each year from funding provided by the Department of Social and Family Affairs arising from the application of the free travel scheme to the scheme. In addition, I know that some RTI projects are generating additional funds from the provision of transport services to health boards and from other sources.
From the outset, RTI projects have been encouraged to explore innovative ways in which their services can be partly financed from the local economy in which they operate. The degree to which prospective RTI groups put forward proposals for co-financing and the securing of additional resources from non-Exchequer sources were among the operational criteria used to assess the original applications.
In deciding on the extension of the RTI to end-2006, I was conscious that many of the pilot projects only became fully operational in 2003. I was also conscious that continuing the RTI to end 2006 will ensure that the lifespan of the initiative will dovetail with the scope of the National Development Plan 2000-2006 in which the initiative was first mooted.
The extension will facilitate a more comprehensive appraisal of the effectiveness of the RTI in addressing the transport needs of rural areas. It will enable the 34 projects to further explore best practice models of transport provision and to strategically develop approaches to planning and co-ordinating transport services in areas where it was traditionally considered difficult to do so.
