Ms Anne Graham:

Deputy Murphy asked about the services, which are tendered for two years. Obviously, it would not be our intention for the service to disimprove. The tender process is not based on price alone, but we also look at quality, and one of the quality elements is the accessibility which is offered. I am not aware of any disimprovements in the service level and it would not be our intention that this would happen. Even if it occurred as a result of a pricing issue, because a tender process is being undertaken, we would try to recover that as quickly as possible, with the two years requirement to have a wheelchair accessible vehicle on the service. As I said, I am not aware of anything that has happened in that case.

On the next stop announcements on the DART, we had some indication and there has been some scoping work done with an initial costing of €30 million put on that. We need to re-examine it. We are only at the very early stages of that, working with Iarnród Éireann to develop that project. We would like to commence that project this year. We do not know at this point, but it could take a year or two years to implement because we are talking about the whole communications system, both visual and audible, across the DART system. It definitely needs a good investment.

On powers and legislation, while we have some compulsory acquisition powers, if compulsory acquisition is required to do bus stop works, we would ask the local authorities to use their powers in that area. If we need to step in, we have the facility to do that. When we did the work with the Irish Wheelchair Association on access to the wheelchair space on Dublin Bus, one issue that Dublin Bus raised with us is that its drivers cannot force people out of the space. They can only encourage them. Its by-laws and the primary legislation does not allow them to enforce a movement. It is another matter whether we wish to take that route but we want to examine, along with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, whether there should be a change in legislation. No decision has been made on that but we are working through the Department on the matter.

Responding to Senator Dolan who raised the matter of the 24 hour notice, we are concerned that even when it is given, it is not working. We know there are issues on this as a service provider, but also the requirement to have the notice at all. We want to work with the operators, as I have indicated, to try to remove the notice. Our target is to have 100% universally accessible public transport without notice periods. As to how long that would take, at current funding levels it would be very many years. We will give the committee a note of what would be required for the areas that we would target and the type of infrastructure that we would prioritise to make significant steps towards that target. We supplied the committee with information which gives an indication of the cost relating to railway stations, where the improvements would cost around €80 million. Regarding bus stations, Bus Éireann wants to revisit the cost associated with it, but in that case improving the infrastructure would also be in the tens of millions. Our key target is to have 100% universally accessible public transport. Many elements must be targeted to deliver that, and funding is required to help us do so.