Ms Anne Graham:

It depends on the level of service change as to what level of consultation would be in place. Generally, the operators have consultation on the changes. In the context of the possible changes to the Expressway routes, the NTA would manage the consultation because we may be contracting those services or changing existing services. As we have done before, we have published an assessment of routes five and seven around what would be the replacement services. We certainly attended many local meetings to get feedback on what would be the demand and on the changes that could be made to those services.

The level of consultation undertaken depends on the type of service we are talking about. We carried out a consultation in respect of Mayo. It was the first time we did a county-wide consultation in regard to public transport services. We carried it out in 2015 and published a document on what the improvement in public transport services could be, particularly for Mayo. It was a question of ascertaining the kind of feedback we could get on service provision. We have the information available to us to assist us in planning for what could be replaced in terms of Expressway services in the area.