Mr. Fintan Towey:

With regard to the fourth railway package and what will happen from now on, the European legislative process means the Council and Parliament will separately examine the proposals and eventually come to an agreement through the co-decision procedure. The implementation timeframe for the market reform elements I mentioned earlier is 1 January 2019.

The first question is in what form will the proposals finally be agreed and when. It is difficult to state a timeframe. It is not unusual for the European legislative procedure on a major set of proposals to take two years or a timeframe of that order.

With regard to the question on rolling stock, the draft legislation says that it is a requirement for member states to ensure that there are non-discriminatory arrangements in place regarding access to rolling stock. That provision will require some action on our part and we must determine what arrangements should be put in place. We are different from the European mainland because we are an island so have a different rail gauge. It is not simply a case that we can take excess rolling stock from one country and move it to another. That option does not exist. If we are to have an efficient provision of services within the market then we need to ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to make the best use of the stock of rolling stock.

To directly answer the Deputy's question, it would be permissible to set up a State agency that had ownership of the rolling stock. That is one option but options will have to be examined.