Mr. Cormac O'Rourke:

I would guess perhaps three or four occasions in the last five years. It is not that frequent but it does occur. In terms of governance it is important that we recognise these things can happen.

Deputy Munster asked about savings on personnel. My only concern is that we have a limited range of projects. How we rank them is outlined in the appendix to my opening statement. We could probably make a case for having a greater number of projects under consideration but we do not have the personnel to do that at the moment. That was the concern I was expressing.

On the funding gap on maintenance which Deputy John O'Mahony also raised, the requirement is approximately €70 million for small maintenance projects, and is about €140 million in terms of capital maintenance, such as resurfacing. As the management team will have outlined to the committee last week, the this year we are in receipt of about €36 million for small scale maintenance works which is not sufficient to do it. The capital maintenance figures have come back up from about €70 million to €100 million and the Minister has assured us we will meet both targets by 2020, which is welcome. I always worry about cutting maintenance at a time when money is in short supply. It does not always represent good value for money but it is not something we are in control of. The Oireachtas votes the different sub-headings that we have, and we live within those. We cannot transfer money from one sub-heading to another, it is just something we have to deal with.

On wheelchair accessibility at bus stops, the TII does not have any role in relation to bus stops, it is a matter for Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus and the NTA. However, we are looking at it in relation to Luas stops. We have a standard on wheelchair accessibility for the service stations we are in control of and are re-examining them in light of the committee's questions on the previous occasion to see if we can improve on it. We have certain standards, where there is internal and external access to the wheelchair facilities and the circulation space is definitely designed to accommodate wheelchair access. We will look again at mobility-impaired standards at the very best practice.