Danny Healy-Rae: Bus Costs and Capacity in Kerry

00:00 I too am glad to get the opportunity and thank Sinn Féin for raising this very important 00:07 issue because many people are very, very concerned about raising the cost of travel in public 00:18 transport. 00:19 And while we do appreciate the public transport that we have in Kerry, very much so, because 00:27 that's a very rural county and towns are dispersed and far away from each other, Kilmarney provides 00:38 a great service, but the idea that I have is that maybe that we don't need the larger 00:47 bus all the time, Minister, maybe you could save with a midi bus, something like 35 seats 00:53 or something like that. 00:54 It would be maybe more, you know, that would fulfill the needs of the people. 01:02 I suppose very concerned about school, the young people and under 18s going to college 01:10 and indeed over 18s, the raising of the cost of travelling and buses, I think that many 01:21 people, parents and students are very concerned about this. 01:25 I also want to raise the issue of concessionary bus tickets. 01:32 There's a problem in school transport that's manifesting a lot where people need their 01:40 children to be taken on the bus, but if they're inside the distance and they only have a concessionary 01:46 ticket, they're not allowed to travel on the bus. 01:50 And we need places like Kilmarney town itself, we need a lot more buses to bring the people 02:00 in from the outlying parts of the town, because the town is very busy and you can't let children 02:05 walk and parents don't have a second car and it's very hard for them to get their children 02:13 to school, let it be a moil or whatever it is in the, we'll say, the suburb, the town 02:21 suburbs, and we need more transport to administer. 02:25 And certainly there's a route from Kilmarney to Killardley. 02:30 We need more space in those buses, there's secondary students travel from Kilmarney to 02:39 Killardley, have been doing so for years, but we don't have enough capacity there at 02:45 all times. 02:46 Minister. 02:48 Again, Minister, I'm very concerned about the cost of trying to entice people, and many 02:54 people have no other choice other than to travel in public transport, but to raise the 02:58 cost for people at this time, and so many people under so much pressure, I don't think 03:08 it's the opportune time.