Mr. Aidan Murphy:

I will deal with the PSO first and with why it is separate. We want to be very transparent about our operation. The Expressway service is a commercial operation and it should, and will, make a profit to generate further funds for investment, and I will come back to that in a moment.

In discussions with the NTA, the regulator, we need to be able to clearly show the PSO services and how that is structured. It is not a fatalistic view but rather about being transparent with the NTA about how we are managing our business so there is clarity about where the subvention is going and what it is being used for. We would want to get into further discussions with the NTA about further clarity in that regard in order to demonstrate that certain routes will require certain levels of subvention which comes back to the question about cherry-picking.

There is a real danger routes could be cherry-picked. Obviously, we will want to compete with any other service providers to manage to get those routes because we believe we have built up an expertise and an involvement with the community that will help us. However, if one cherry-picks all of the profitable routes, one is left with a number of routes which will require even greater subvention, so there is a balancing act there. At the moment, the subvention is one sum of money for the PSO operation. It does not follow the particular routes where a greater element of subvention is necessary. Maybe that is what will happen in time. One must recognise that certain routes might be desirable from a social point of view but from a cost point of view, they are very significant in terms of subvention cost. It is purely from the point of view of transparency and how we face into the future restructured direct award situation that we want to be clear about that.

In regard to school transport, the Deputy is right that there is a lot of dialogue between Bus Éireann, as the provider, and the Department of Education and Skills. The Department of Education and Skills lays down the rules and regulations in regard to how it should operate and we operate it on its behalf. Having said that, our staff have regular updates with the Department, they feed back any information we have and any of the feedback we get from our inspectors on the ground and so on. I could not tell the Deputy definitely but I understand from presentations made to the board, there is quite a degree of understanding on both sides and, as a result, changes which both sides believe are necessary are then implemented. However, I could not give the Deputy chapter and verse on that.