Ms Anne Graham:

I can answer most of the questions.

We were asked who guarantees a minimum level of service when villages are bypassed. If the authority feels there is a public transport obligation regarding the provision of a service, we will respond and either provide a service by expanding the existing direct award contracts or we will tender out those services. Last year we responded in respect of the changes made on the Expressway routes 5 and 7. We provided additional services on Bus Éireann's PSO direct award and we also tendered out additional services to meet the gaps that opened up as a result of the changes to the Expressway service. We will respond wherever we are required to do so throughout the State if there are changes to commercial services leaving an area without a public transport service.

On the growth in public transport, obviously the economy is improving. What would be the measure of success for the authority in terms of extra services? The ultimate measure of success is having a modal shift, as has been set out in our strategy. That is about ensuring car usage is reduced to 45% and that the sustainable mode use is up at around 55%. To achieve that across the greater Dublin area would be quite a significant change. That would be a measure of success. However, many things need to be put in place before we would be close to achieving that, including all the rail infrastructure. Improving the core bus network is a key priority for us in terms of the measures we can take to address the growing congestion now.

As the Deputy said, commuting, including car commuting and public transport commuting, is generally increasing, leading to congestion which affects the bus services. We are working on plans to upgrade the network of quality bus corridors in the Dublin region to try to ensure there is end-to-end priority for bus services on the key radial routes and on the orbital routes in order that we can respond to the congestion that is building on the commuter areas.

On the issue of reasonable profit, the investment in public transport is covered by both fare revenue and subvention. We are obliged to ensure the public transport services that are delivered are covered either through fare revenue or through subvention. We try to ensure there are no losses to the public transport operators, as we are obliged to do. We are working with the operators to ensure that continues to be the case and also to try to meet the underfunding that certainly exists in Irish Rail services. We believe that we should work on the capital investment in terms of bus and rail infrastructure. The companies, themselves, will decide what they will do in terms of reinvesting profit. We want to deliver the infrastructure in order that Dublin Bus and Irish Rail do not have to invest themselves.