Mr. Gerry Murphy:

The last one was December 2008. Orders were made previous to that in 2004, 2005 and 2007. There had been a growth trend and work was done by Irish Rail at the time in submitting its application to the Department of Transport on what it projected passenger numbers would be over a 13 year horizon. Goodbody, the economic consultants, came in and did a review of the business case and a trend growth was anticipated. Many of the lines would have doubled or tripled over a 13 year period of passenger demand but there was a 17% drop in passenger volumes from 2008. Not only did they not increase on a pro rata basis, it started to haemorrhage passenger numbers.