Mr. Kevin Doyle:

I will respond to the Deputy's last point first. The proposed directive, 2012/34, from which we derogated previously, must be implemented now. It does not in any way impose a requirement on us to competitively tender for the provision of rail services. We can still operate with the direct award contract, which the NTA has with Irish Rail. It was a ten year contract from 2009 so it continues to 2019. In fact, in discussions in Europe on the fourth railway package we are insisting that we can continue to have a direct award contract and that we do not have to tender competitively due to the size of our rail market, which is approximately 0.4% of the total EU rail market. In some respects it would not make sense that we would be forced to competitively tender. That is the position we are adopting in that regard.

On the mechanical issue the Deputy mentioned, I presume that relates to the appeals procedure where somebody could continue to operate a vehicle which has failed the NCT as a taxi. The way the legislation is worded at present means that, with appeals procedures and so forth, a person could potentially continue to operate that taxi for a period of two months even though it has failed the NCT. In all other respects, the appeals procedure would allow the person to continue to operate for any other reason, it only specifically relates to failing the-----