Pensioners could have unlimited free travel on public transport throughout Ireland by next year under plans announced yesterday. Consultation was started yesterday on the scheme which is understood to be unique within the European Union.
Northern Secretary Peter Hain and Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern announced the plan at a meeting in Hillsborough yesterday.
Mr Hain said ministers and officials in both Dublin and Belfast were now working on the plan in tandem. "Minister Séamus Brennan and our own transport minister, David Cairns, are working on the detail," he said. "Consultation is being launched today . . . I'm very pleased to see this going forward."
If approved, as seems likely, pensioners in both the Republic and Northern Ireland will be able to travel free on public transport anywhere within the 32 counties.
Free travel for those over 65 was initially introduced by the late Charles Haughey in the 1960s. It was extended to Northerners travelling south by Proinsias De Rossa when he was minister for social welfare under the Rainbow Government of the mid 1990s and announced by Minister for Finance Ruairí Quinn in a budget speech.
Reciprocal privileges to Southerners were announced under the power sharing Executive in 2002 shortly before the Stormont institutions were suspended.
However, the agreement to date facilitated only point-to-point free travel across the Border and did not allow for free public transport within the neighbouring jurisdiction.
The North's Department of Regional Development said the unlimited free travel scheme was likely to be the only such agreement operating on such a scale between two EU member states. "There may be some such schemes operated by local government," a representative said. "But there's nothing on this scale." The EU Commission office in Belfast said it was unaware of any equivalent elsewhere in the Union.
Mr Cairns said the proposal was a "win-win" situation for the elderly. "It is a good thing because obviously pensioners on a fixed income benefit greatly from things such as free transport," he said. "They will be able to travel around much more freely now without having to pay for it," Mr Cairns said.
"I hope that people from south of the Border come up here and take advantage of the free travel to visit the wonderful things we have to offer in Northern Ireland."