Mr. Fintan Towey:

This package is building on the foundations that have been laid to develop a regulatory model that provides for the provision of rail services on a competitive basis and for the opening up of PSO contracts to tendering. The freight market was liberalised in Europe from 1 January 2007 and the international passenger market was liberalised with effect from 1 January 2010. Ireland had a derogation from the implementation of those requirements until now and, therefore, there are two separate things happening. On the one hand, the derogation Ireland has availed of has been brought to an end-----