Mr. Martin Nolan:

The Expressway market was set up under legislation in the late 2000s and since then there has been a vast oversupply in the market. Everybody is scrambling after a small number of passengers. The licences that went in concentrated on each end of the route, taken at the bigger population centres, as the Deputy described. At the time, most of Bus Éireann's routes would have gone through all the towns and villages in rural Ireland. As such, we were the last ones in there so we came out kicking and screaming. It was not what we wanted to do. However, if it is a commercial product and we want to survive, we have to compete and go after the biggest population centres otherwise we will be out of the game.

Another wave of licences went to much lower-cost operators prior to the recession. I refer to operators such as J.J. Kavanagh & Sons who have been there for years. These lower terms and conditions have created another problem for us which we must deal with or go out of business. This is what we are at in Bus Éireann. The market is set and we are only a player in the market.