Mr. Aidan Murphy:

The Deputy is incorrect. The Grant Thornton initial report was in the middle of 2015. It was exactly because the board was concerned about the position in 2015 that we threatened to not pass a budget for 2016, not 2017. That was the initial stage. There was no 24 months of time lost. I reject that contention.

With regard to waste, what came out of the investigation into the Bus Éireann position was that there were work practice inefficiencies. Even in different regions, there were different work practices. Those work practices had to be negotiated with staff. We cannot take unilateral action. If one takes unilateral action, one gets into industrial disputes. Addressing the inefficiencies and introducing improvements and modernisation must be negotiated with staff representatives. That takes time and agreement.

From Bus Éireann's point of view, we did not take unilateral action until the final stage in 2017 when, despite the best efforts of the new management team, no agreement was forthcoming from the employee representatives. The board quite clearly said it was not prepared to continue in that situation because, under the Companies Act, it would be liable to prosecution. For that reason, the board said, unilaterally, certain things needed to happen. Unfortunately, that kind of environment created industrial action and it was necessary to deal with that. It was unfortunate and regrettable but that was what was required to bring the company through to a sustainable position.