Mr. Aidan Murphy:

I wish to make one point on congestion because it would be of great assistance from Bus Éireann's point of view. There are dedicated bus lanes in the cities but more so in Dublin. The regional cities are not as well provided for in terms of bus priority measures and it is an issue where the focus that has been on Dublin has not transferred to Cork, Galway and Limerick. That is a serious issue.

Deputy Catherine Murphy would be aware from her constituency that we have buses coming into Dublin on the motorway and when they reach the end of the motorway, they are stuck in the traffic with the rest of the traffic. People might as well be in a car. We do not see why there would be a difficulty in having the buses use the side lanes. I know it is for emergency vehicles but if buses could use the side lanes, they would then be able to move through the traffic and get into the city much faster. That would be a tremendous benefit for customers because they would then see a significant advantage in using the bus over the car to get into the city. We would welcome it if the committee was able to support such an initiative.