The Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht met this afternooon to discuss the challenges facing rural Ireland, the most commonly cited of which were the recent cuts to public transport routes by Bus Éireann, lack of rural broadband and the diminution of rural services.

Cuts to Bus Éireann routes

The most common complaint from speakers at the meeting concerned yesterday's announcement by Bus Éireann of cuts to almost 100 public transport services between the south and south-east and Dublin due to low passenger numbers.

Deputy Brian Stanley of Sinn Féin was particularly vocal on the issue and said: "at the stroke of a pen 100 services were wiped out. If you can't get in and out of an area what will you do?"

Minister Phelan responded to the deputy's request for follow-up on this announcement by pledging to establish a protocol where the service provider comes to talk to the community when a service is cut so that the community gets a chance to put an alternative in place. She said the "blanket should not be pulled from under the feet of rural Ireland" as it was in yesterday's sudden development.

She also said it is important to provide an alternative in these sort of situations and that Bus Éireann has committed to keeping one of the routes to be cut, Route 7 between Dublin and Cork via Kilkenny and Clonmel, in place until June this year while Phelan works with the community and NTA to see what the challenges are around the withdrawal of these services.

On closer questioning from Deputy Stanley the minister admitted she did not yet have the specifics of the protocol worked out but that she was adamant it would be established with the guidance of people from the communities affected by the cuts.

Rural broadband

On the issue of rural broadband the minister said there is a clear timeline in place in order to achieve this with a public consultation process due to take place over the summer and the government hoping to be able to select a preferred broadband bidder by 2016.

She added that the physical bill should take 3 to 5 years to complete and that ultimately broadband is to be installed in 750,000 premises equivalent to 100,000 km of road and that it would cover 96% of land mass. The minister said the process needed careful planning and could not be rolled out on an ad-hoc basis.

Diminution of public services

Responding to a number of complaints on this subject from members of the Committee, Minister Phelan expressed sympathy for communities affected by the closures of services such as garda stations, rural pubs and post offices and said her department was looking into ways to facilitate the consolidation of some services in order to improve their economic sustainability. She cited the rural pub in Britain as an example of this, commending its reinvention as the local shop and said that she is working closely with organisations in rural Ireland who have ideas on how to reinvent or consolidate retail services.

The post office was held up as another example of where consolidation of services could be achieved and the minister endorsed suggestions by speakers at the hearing to provide more services in rural post offices such as banking so as to improve the chances of its longevity in rural Ireland.