Mr. Martin Nolan:

Senator Brennan asked how the reduction in costs was achieved. It was achieved by hard work on the part of the vehicles, the people and also by smarter thinking. A number of services have very small passenger numbers. We get much more out of our vehicles these days. Technology allows a smarter monitoring of the network.

A question was asked about tendering. Our submission to the NTA requested a proper cost-benefit analysis. As we said earlier, all that glitters is not gold, with reference to other countries such as Sweden and the UK. Our track record needs to be taken into account. We need to be very confident that if this work is given to another party that it can do it. I believe our track record shows that we are well capable of doing it. We transport 113,000 children on school transport services provided under the school transport scheme, of whom 50,000 enjoy free school transport.