Mr. Seamus Boland:

On the local and county based forums, the level of anger and disengagement about not being consulted at local level is such that people feel extremely disconnected in all sorts of ways when transport issues arise. The benefit of having a forum on which local communities would be represented is that when services in an area are threatened, the community would have a say in terms of how it could contribute to the solution.

I graciously accept Bus Éireann's declaration that there could be more services. When services have been threatened in the past, including those provided by Bus Éireann, one of the major problems has been that the first people hear about it is when their closure is suddenly announced in the media. This means they have no possibility of engaging with the provider. The committee should note that the rural charter, which is part of the rural programme announced this week, specifically seeks to have public services and those provided by banks and other private entities engage properly with the community before announcing closures. This would at least give people an adequate opportunity to contribute towards finding a solution. What was the second issue?