Mr. Michael Nolan:

There were synergies in a number of areas. One is that we are now headquartered in one place, on Parkgate Street behind Heuston Station. We have combined the IT and finance functions, among others. We had a deficit of expertise in roads and were not able to recruit new staff for some nine years but the national roads authority was a fully functioning non-commercial State agency. In addition, people from Luas Cross City are ideally placed to fill in some of the gaps in terms of roads and we see a lot of synergies coming when people come off that scheme. We had 287 staff at the time of the merger and we are heading towards 250 in two years' time.