Mr. Gerry Gannon:

In respect of the canvassing aspect, in 1999 a total of 42 applications were received. That is fewer than four per local office. Nationally we have 11 local offices so that is an entirely inadequate figure in order to keep services running. One must remember as well that of the 42 applications more than half of the vehicles that were put forward were not suitable in terms of documentation so we could not use them. Only 16 of the vehicles could be used and all 16 were used.

To meet the demand in 1999 we needed 69 more vehicles and they had to be found through referrals and canvassing. That means referrals through people working in the industry approaching operators directly and asking them whether they had additional vehicles which they could put forward for school transport purposes. That does not mean they would be accepted at a lower standard than usual. We cannot, for example, rule out 26 vehicles in terms of suitability and then replace them with 26 vehicles of a lower standard. That simply is not the case. We had to go to the industry to find the additional vehicles that met our standards.