Free travel? On yer bike Ryan tells health staff
TRANSPORT Minister Eamon Ryan has snubbed an appeal for Covid-fighting frontline workers to get free travel during the coronavirus crisis, saying they should cycle or walk instead.
Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan asked the Green Party leader for an assessment to see if ‘hospital and nursing home staff could use public transport without charge during Covid-19 restrictions’.
He also said the National Transport Authority should give ‘serious consideration’ to his proposal that, ‘a free travel scheme on public transport can be introduced during the pandemic restrictions for frontline healthcare workers’.
In reply, the minister told Deputy O’Callaghan that when it comes to going to work, ‘people are being encouraged to walk or cycle’.
His response has been compared to the famous ‘on yer bike!’ speech by Margaret Thatcher’s Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit, who replied to pleas to support the jobless by saying they should get on their bikes and get a job, just like his father had done.
Though health staff do have to be on-site to do their jobs, Minister Ryan added: ‘Organisations are encouraged to continue to facilitate working from home.’ He added: ‘Guided by public health advice, measures have been introduced across the system to enable the continued operation of services during the pandemic.
‘There is continued strong messaging that public transport capacity remains restricted and, therefore, should only be used for essential travel, with only those who have to travel at peak times doing so.’
He also claimed: ‘The Government is spending considerable additional Exchequer funds on the public transport sector in order to support the continued operation of necessary services, despite the reduced demand and the restricted capacity owing to the Covid-19 situation.
‘Government support for all public transport services in 2020 amounted to over €620million. For 2021, over €670million has been provided in funding, in order to ensure that the existing level of public transport services, albeit at a higher cost, continue to operate in a safe manner.’
Despite all this expenditure Minister Ryan issued a strong message of deterrence. ‘The Government’s Living With Covid Plan clearly sets out the guidance and restrictions that will apply for all sectors, including public transport… including strong messaging that people should use active travel as an alternative where this is feasible,’ he said.
The advice, he said, ‘is aimed at ensuring public transport is safeguarded for those who need it most, most notably, essential workers’. In a further dismissal of Mr O’Callaghan’s proposal, the minister said: ‘Any assessment of a proposed change to public transport fare structures would be a matter for the National Transport Authority (NTA) to consider in the first instance. I have, therefore referred the deputy’s question to the NTA for direct reply.’ The Fianna Fáil TD replied that despite restrictions, ‘measures should be brought in to encourage essential services, especially in health, to use public transport.’ He added that the minister should recognise that ‘it is not possible for all essential workers to cycle or walk to work and, accordingly, this proposal should be given serious consideration’.
He also added that the decision to refer the issue of free fares to the NTA should be given serious consideration by transport body.
Currently, the majority of free travel is provided to pensioners and individuals who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments.
One Government source commented that the Green Party leader’s tough stance against the free travel request
Reply compared to Norman Tebbit ‘Many live far from their work’
‘is an astonishing message from Ryan. He appears to think like some Green Norman Tebbit, that frontline workers should just get on their bikes or walk to work’. He seems, ‘to be incapable of understanding that many frontline workers live quite a long way away from the job. Not everyone resides in the leafy glades of Pembroke. ‘Eamon’s ideal transport system appears to resemble the hospital in Yes Minister where the bureaucrats believed it worked better when there were no patients. This is a small gesture of respect to frontline workers that has attracted yet another refusal. Really these Greens make the PDs look like Marxists.’