Michelle calls for more bus services for rural areas
MICHELLE Hall, Labour candidate for Drogheda Rural electoral area at the 2019 elections, has highlighted the severe lack of bus services on the Clogherhead-Termonfeckin-Baltray route.
“There are only four buses leaving the villages Monday to Friday, three on Saturday and none on Sunday or Public Holidays”. She compared the level of service to the East Meath route of Laytown to Drogheda, where there are up to 15 times more buses leaving during the week.
“Laytown has 29 buses going into Drogheda and on Sundays and Public Holidays there are 15. The residents of Clogherhead, Termonfeckin and Baltray are inhibited in their ability to access work, school, hospital, shops, and social life in general.”
Michelle has found that families are spending money on taxis to visit loved ones in Sunhill Nursing Home located in Termonfeckin. “It is mainly the youth, older people, those with limited mobility and people on lower incomes that are affected by public transport and these reflect over a third of the population in this region”.
She has made complaints to Bus Eireann and they have communicated that they will work with the National Transport Authority to offer a better bus service and about the need for more buses and the discrepancy in the timetable. It states there’s a bus at 3.20pm from Drogheda on its online timetable but the bus leaves the bus depot in Drogheda at 3pm. It is then a three hour wait for the next bus.
“The people of the expanding Drogheda rural villages need a quality community based public transport service which responds to local needs as set out in the Rural Transport Programme”, says the Labour candidate.