Mr. Gerry Murphy:

This is for the benefit of consumers but there are implications for the employees within the company. The 10% quotient was carefully chosen to test the market and to test competitive tendering and pricing and to introduce benchmarking. At the same time, it is manageable for these companies. They have up until 2016 to plan for this small downsizing if they are unsuccessful. This year, Dublin Bus is advertising for 50 new drivers and putting extra services on the road because of slight economic growth and the need for services. We believe careful management by the bus companies, along with retirement and increased growth and increased demand for services, will mean that the need for transfer of employees may not occur. If a transfer of employees does occur, they are protected by transfer of undertakings regulations and EU directives in that regard. Terms and conditions are protected. The protection of employment on transfer of undertakings regulations are silent in respect of pensions. We will meet the NBRU during the week and we will discuss pensions and any requirement on the successful tenderer to provide a pension scheme. In general, terms and conditions are protected. It is an important item of European legislation transposed into Irish law, which means that when an asset or a service is moved on, the person's job is not lost. I understand the concerns but there is an opportunity to prepare for the 2016 change. Some 10% of Dublin Bus services will be tendered and in the case of Bus Éireann it would have less of an impact. Bus Éireann also runs commercial operations, such as the school transport services. We are talking about taking 40 buses out of 1,200 buses, which is only about 3% of its operations nationally. In the case of Waterford, city services will be taken for tendering but there will be residual commercial services and school transport services. At the Waterford depot, the services that will be going out to tender amount to only 15% of the depot size. There was a careful balance between maintaining the coherence of Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann, being able to run efficiently and opening up for competitive tendering.