Mr. Aidan Murphy:

First, school transport revenue represents just over 50% of Bus Éireann revenue, so it is a very significant part. That said, we run it on behalf of the Department. It is cost neutral from the point of the company in that respect. However, it links in with the three specific entities within Bus Éireann and for that reason it is important. Untangling that would obviously have very significant impacts. We do not anticipate, at this point, that the business will be lost to us. We are certainly working very hard with the Department to improve further the cost base, cost competitiveness, IT systems, renew the fleet and so forth. We recently put in place a new online system for parents to make bookings for children. At all times we are bringing innovation to the service. In the final analysis, we believe the service we are offering to the Department will stand scrutiny from any other competitors that might wish to consider it. Certainly, in an international context we are well regarded in that area.

With regard to the reduction in the subvention, unfortunately we are dealing with the reality of the current position. Despite the positive signals emanating regarding the economy, and we all wish that will continue to be the case, we are under no illusion that there are still difficult times ahead. It is not simply going to be a case of rolling back to further levels of subvention. That is why we have a very strong emphasis on the competitiveness of the company and making it as competitive as possible, both to provide the best value PSO services on the one hand and, second, to provide an Expressway service that generates sufficient profits to allow us to reinvest in the product.

Our five-year plan envisages that, from our resources, we will reinvest €50 million in the fleet. The average age of our vehicles on the PSO and Expressway service is of the order of six to seven years. Given that we do 167 million km per year, people can imagine the distance travelled by each vehicle. As they grow older, maintenance becomes a significant cost, and this has an impact on the profit and loss. We will work with the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the Government. Within the subvention levels, we would like to have the maximum we can but we are working to make ourselves as cost-competitive as we can to meet the challenges. There are many challenges for the company in the coming years. We are under no illusions. In the area of competitiveness, 10% of our award will be contracted by the NTA at the end of 2015. At the end of 2019, a new regime with regard to direct award will come into play. We believe we will be well placed from the competitive perspective to manage any competition that will arise.