Mr. Gerry Murphy:

The key issue the Deputy identified was whether the new structures can properly reflect and identify the needs in local areas compared to the larger 35-group structure.

We consider that because we will have 18 units, which is a significant number of units, and these will be much aligned with local authority boundaries and feeding into the process local authorities will be undertaking, we should be able to maintain the knowledge of what is happening in local areas.

Something had to be done. There was not only the value for money review but also the McCarthy report, which looked at services and recommended that the programme would be abolished. At one time that was being considered. What we have tried to do is restructure the programme to retain all of its best elements but to drive down the administrative cost basis to protect the service.

I was asked specifically about the door-to-door service. Yes, that will be retained. The objective is that it will be retained to current levels. The current level of service allows people to ring up to organise a service and for a dispatcher to be contacted. That will be retained. Even though there will be subsidy cuts in the programme, because there are subsidy cuts generally in public transport, we feel that through the restructuring we will be able to maintain the current level of service. In 2011, the grant aid for the programme was €10.6 million. In 2012, the amount reduced to €9.77 million and in 2013 it fell to €9.133 million. The grant aid in 2014 will be approximately €8.5 million. With a declining subsidy available we had to address the underlying cost base and see whether we could come up with something that enabled the service to be retained.

On our own costs, all of the salary cuts that apply to the public sector apply to our organisation. We are currently underfunded. We rely on the taxi service introduced by the Commission on Taxi Regulation to enable us to discharge all our operations. We manage that carefully. Off the top of my head I cannot give the figure.