Sharon Keogan: Demands seamless All-Ireland free travel

Thank you Cathaoirleach and Minister, you're very welcome in this afternoon and I rise today to focus on the House's attention on a vital public service that sits at the very heart of social inclusion on this Ireland, the free travel scheme. Specifically I'm calling on the Minister for Social Protection to investigate a comprehensive seamless expansion of this scheme into Northern Ireland. The free travel scheme is a lifeline providing dignity, independence and mobility to all our older citizens, full-time carers and people with disabilities. Yet when an eligible pass holder reaches the border, that independence is abruptly halted by an invisible wall of administrative bureaucracy. I want to pre-empt what I expect the Minister is going to argue today. The Department will likely argue that a system already exists. They will point to the senior pass scheme where a resident here can apply for a separate concessionary card to travel into the north. But let us be completely honest with ourselves, forcing a 75 year old pensioner or a vulnerable citizen to fill out separate cross-border application forms, jump through bureaucracy hoops and wait weeks for a second piece of plastic is not a true all-Ireland strategy. It is a barrier. It is an administrative deterrent. It's also a scheme that leaves out those with disabilities and full-time carers. We must recognise that the communities near the border do not see their lives in two separate halves. For them, the border is a line on a map, not a barrier to daily life. Families, social lives and basic daily activities span both sides of that line fluidly. When a pensioner or disabled person wants to visit a grandchild, go to the shop or attend a community event just a few miles away, they shouldn't have to navigate a maze of international paperwork just to use a local bus. The current clunky separation of transport passes ignores the lived reality of these tight-knit cross-border communities. Let's be clear, a truly seamless integrated system is a win-win that delivers massive practical benefits to residents of Northern Ireland as well. Northern seniors holding a senior smart pass love visiting the south, but the moment they cross the border, their younger disabled neighbours and full-time carers are left completely stranded and forced to pay full adult fares. By working with northern authorities and Stormont and Westminster to recognise reciprocal rights seamlessly, we open up transit opportunities for all vulnerable northern citizens, allowing them to travel, spend and visit families in the Republic without facing a financial or administrative wall. The true value of an all-Ireland approach is that it replaces confusion with total coherence. Right now we have a messy, unequal patchwork of rules. A disabled citizen in the south gets 100% free travel, but across the border a disabled person only gets a half fare pass and a full-time carer gets absolutely nothing at all. This is a significant human rights gap on a single island. Sitting down with Stormont to deliver a single unified rulebook for free travel means we lift everyone to the same high standard of dignity and mobility, ensuring that a person's vulnerability isn't penalised simply because of a jurisdiction they happen to live in. Finally, as a more general point, we must stop planning public transport inside geographic silos and start looking at our transit networks as a real, logical all-Ireland basis. Take the North West for example. The city of Derry is a natural economy and transit hub for the vast majority of County Donegal. For citizens living in Donegal or Monaghan, it is frequently much faster and more practical to transit directly across Tyrone or Fermanagh to reach another part of the Republic than it is to navigate their way into Connacht. If our transport geometry is inherently cross-border, our ticketing and free travel system must be exactly the same. If this Government is genuinely committed to shared island initiatives, we must move past these clunky, outdated systems. An all-Ireland approach should be a default setting for public services, not an afterthought. We need a modern, integrated framework where a free travel pass issued in Cork, Galway or Dublin can be tapped on a train or bus ready for Belfast, Derry or Enniskillen. No separate applications, no additional passes and no bureaucratic headaches. I urge the Minister to demonstrate real leadership on this matter and to initiate immediate feasibility talks on the matter. Just before the Minister rises, I would like to welcome the IFA's national Ready to Lead group, who are guests of the Count Cora and Verona Murphy. He is obviously keeping them on the tight schedule there. You're very welcome. Thank you. Minister. Thank you very much, Caoirleach, and welcome to you and the audience, Caoirleach, from this evening and welcome to the Chamber. Senator, there's not much I disagree with you, but as you know, there are considerable practicalities in much of this, which I will now go through. The free travel scheme, as you know, provides free travel on the main public and private transport services in the state for those eligible. That includes road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus A-Gha-Clea, Bus Arran and Arran Northern, as well as Lewis, but also additional services that are provided by over 70 private transport operators. The All-Ireland free travel scheme is a reciprocal agreement between my department and the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. It represents an agreement under which institutions in this state and in Northern Ireland recognise free travel arrangements for older people in each jurisdiction as equivalent arrangements. The All-Ireland free travel scheme became operational in April 2007. The scheme enables those who are aged 66 and over and resident in the Republic to travel free of charge on all bus and rail services in Northern Ireland and likewise seniors in Northern Ireland travel free of charge on bus, rail, air and ferry services that are participating in the free travel scheme in this state. As part of the agreement, the Northern Ireland authorities require that customers who are travelling, wishing to avail of free travel in the north, should do so using a SmartPass as used for free travel by their Northern Ireland counterparts. The SmartPass is compatible with electronic card readers that are used on Northern Ireland services. People from Northern Ireland just present the senior SmartPass to the operators in the free travel scheme here and they will be issued with a ticket. Under the arrangements, the Northern Ireland authorities pay for travel undertaken within Northern Ireland by senior SmartPass holders resident here and the Department of Social Protection pays for travel undertaken here by senior SmartPass holders resident in Northern Ireland. To require a senior SmartPass, as you have said, a separate application is required. However, this is not an overly burdensome process. The Department has no objection and I will ask my officials to work on examining options with the relevant Northern Ireland authorities to facilitate a more seamless cross-border travel. However, there are a number of practical issues which you also have to table. Removing the need for separate applications or additional travel passes would require agreement, as well as integrated IT systems that will be able to accept and identify when the various travel passes are used to ensure proper remuneration to those who provide the travel service. The various integrated ticketing systems that are used by transport providers are not funded by the Department of Social Protection and the Department has no role in the provision or funding of such systems or instructing transport providers to invest in them. My department are of course available to help any free travel pass holder with their application for a SmartPass and I will look at that in terms of promoting that service. As well as that, I would ask the officials to engage with my colleague Minister Dara O'Brien around what else we can do to expand and make the service easier. I would also point out that through the Shared Island Fund, the Government are making very significant investment in travel infrastructure in Northern Ireland, both in road, in rail, in bus and in public transport. We want to continue to do that, but you raise a very solid issue. The practicalities though are immense, but I'm happy to look to see how we can address those. Minister Pearley and I appreciate you engaging with Minister Dara O'Brien on this. We live in the land of technology. We're told that we're a tech nation and the idea that it would require an agreement and it would be a little bit difficult to have this IT system put in place quickly, it seems a little bit ridiculous. It's something that can be overcome very easily, but the reality of the ground is that, you know, partnerships is not seamless as it requires an older person to fill out an entire separate cross-border application form, submit a passport photograph and wait for weeks just to get a separate piece of plastic. If the technology exists to recognise contactless bank cards instantly across Europe, our transport networks can absolutely recognise a single public service card across our whole island. So the current set up is a bureaucratic hurdle, not a solution. So I believe a solution could be found to this quite easily, Minister, and I hope that you will engage with Minister Dara O'Brien to find that. Thank you very much for coming in today. Technology is absolutely very much part of our lives, but technology, as you'll always point out in debates, needs guardrails, and we have to protect the data of those who use our passes on both sides of the border. That's important, and while we have no objection, I will ask my officials to examine all the options and bring your issue to the matter, to the attention of Minister O'Brien. Any changes will require a cross-border agreement, as well as integrated IT systems, and bearing in mind that there are 70 private operators on top of the public operators, this isn't an easy task. However, the free travel scheme is now benefiting over 1.17 million people who have direct benefit to the pass. So when you look at the companion pass, which we extended last year, and spousal passes, over 2 million people are benefiting from this scheme. The scheme is meeting its objective of ensuring older people and people with disabilities can remain active and can travel. However, in relation to processes, et cetera, we will examine those again. Thanks.