Mr. Jim Meade:

I will respond first as several of the questions were for me. I referred to the NTA in my presentation. There is ring-fenced accessibility funding, which we agree with the NTA. We have an accessibility pot that is agreed every year. We are awaiting finalisation of the current year's pot. The presentation stated that €2.7 million ring-fenced for accessibility last year. We do not need any extra money for any future developments; they are automatically accessibility compliant.

We intend extending the four-hour notice across the network. We expect the pilot to run well because we are already running it informally. I would say that in excess of 100 times daily people just turn up and go and we assist them. Reducing from 24 hours to four hours is a guideline and we regularly do far better than that. As we move on to our on-board service where we help put people on board, people will again turn up and go because a member of staff will be on board to assist people.

The Deputy asked about the entrance to Cork station. In the unlikely event of a failure - we have specified the lifts realising the amount of work they will get - we have the option of using the Glanmire Road. The Deputy is very familiar with the station and will know that the old lifts or ramps can be used from the Glanmire Road. There are alternative means to access the station in the unlikely event of lift failure because we have learned from our experience and the quality and design of lift gone in there now - I might regret saying this - should give us a very high level of reliability.

On level of capacity, we are required to work to an EU standard on new train design. All our trains have capacity in excess of the guidelines, which is 10% of capacity to have either priority seating or wheelchair access.

Regarding wheelchair access, the passenger capacity guidelines refer to the length of a train. Train carriages vary in length from 12 m to 25 m. We are ahead of the guidelines and technical specifications and the EU directive. We have priority seating in every carriage so that people in wheelchairs can, after being accompanied to a train, transition into seats. We are well in excess of the guidelines in that regard. For example, the Mark 4 Cork train has 400 seats, nearly 50 of which are priority seating and - I am doing the maths in my head - with ten wheelchair spaces.