Leitrim woman is 'extremely isolated' because of lack of public transport in county

A Leitrim woman had Ireland AM presenter Muireann O'Connell in tears after she read out a letter from the lady who spoke of her extreme loneliness due to a lack of transport in the county. 

The woman who has raised four children, three of whom have emigrated and one is living in Sligo, wrote a letter that criticised the lack of reliable rural services. 

An excerpt from the letter, revealed that the woman was "stuck in my house six out of every seven days every week; my son comes up from Sligo one day a week to drive me to do my weekly shop. With no corner shop nearby, I freeze basics like bread and milk. My minor road takes lorries and tractors, surely it could take a local bus."

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She added: "I envy city people; they complain about missing a bus. In rural county Leitrim, we'd be grateful to have one. I cry from loneliness almost every day. My kids call often but housing costs and poor rural transport keeps them away. The nearest large town to me is Longford; I would love to visit just one day per week; it's not a lot to ask."

Muireann and Tommy Bowe were joined by Prof Caulfield who is a Professor in Transportation in Trinity and Aisling O'Rourke, Communication Coach. 

Ms O'Rourke described rural transport services as "piece meal" in the country and added that it doesn't work "in every county as efficiently as it might be."

She said she conducted a straw poll before appearing on Ireland AM, which showed that while some local Local Link services are "fantastic" for services such as going out in the evening, people "wouldn't be able to rely on it Monday to Friday for commuting services". 

Prof Caulfield agreed that outside cities, "it's challenging to provide the kind of public transport that people deserve" and noted that 25% of the population live in rural areas and there are only 38% of people in rural Ireland that are 15 minutes away from a local shop. 

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He said that an initiative called "Connecting Ireland 2021", a major five-year initiative by the National Transport Authority (NTA) to improve public transport in rural Ireland, saw the introduction of 150 new or improved services have come on stream with 100,000 people using the new Local Link services last year. 

Ms O'Rourke said that those crossing county boundaries for work can't used the Local Link to get to work before adding, "if you have a train station, there is no bus that meets that train on arrival in most places; we are not yet seeing connection across public services."

She said that the service is used for trips like going to the GP or going to the supermarket because they are not time sensitive.

Prof Caulfield said that a Trinity project is currently looking at public transport in rural areas for which and what they discovered through their research was that "not only older people but people with accessibility issues; all of these people had huge barriers to doing daily things that we take for granted. As part of the project, we come up with a new development plan and work with Local Link and you can see that momentum when you co-create with people."