Mr. Graham Doyle:

The National Transport Authority would certainly make an assessment of the public transport need if services were withdrawn in particular. It did that a couple of years ago in relation to the X5 and X7 routes. It looks at existing services to see if tweaks can be applied to existing services, be they existing PSO services, rural transport services or otherwise, to try to fill the public transport need. It will apply some of its budget to do that. On the last occasion, yes, there was a cost. I do not have it to hand. I believe it was a relatively small cost in terms of the backfill that the NTA engaged in. However, the NTA does ensure it has flexibility in its budget. While we would always like more budget for PSO services, it does ensure there is flexibility to make changes where it needs to make them.