Mr. Ray Coyne:

If the NTA put routes out to tender, Dublin Bus will make a decision as to whether it should tender for them. We also operate a direct-award contract. At present 100% of our services are direct award, outside our commercial services. An integrated network requires just that - integration. We would be strong advocates that a direct-award contract provides the integration required. We have increased our bus fleet by more than 20% in recent years. We have done that within our direct-award contract. Any decision to tender further bus routes is out of the hands of Dublin Bus; it is a Government decision and a policy decision of the NTA. Dublin Bus will make a decision at the time as to whether it would tender from that point of view.

Deputy Troy made a fair comment - eight changed to ten. We made the decision the other day that we could change another two routes; there are only two trips on them, but nonetheless it comes out as two routes. I knew I would be asked the question today. It is certainly not that we were making it up. We just made the decision that we could possibly do another two and decided to go after that. That shows Dublin Bus is progressive in making adjustments to assist in addressing the congestion in the city. If it gave that impression, I am sorry it did. It is certainly not that we are making it up. As I said, since 2011 we have been planning route realignments related to Luas cross-city. We will look at route realignments over the next week and in the following two weeks. We will continue to do that.

I hope I have explained about the traffic through the area. The Deputy correctly mentioned that one third of Dublin Bus customers use the area directly. It is correct to say that not everybody gets off in the area, but everybody who travels through College Green in a bus benefits significantly from the priority it gives. Some 82 million customers would benefit, but directly approximately 20 million customers benefit every single day from College Green.

On the 20% increase, by the end of March this year we will have added approximately 40 buses to our fleet. All our vehicles are procured by the NTA; we do not fund any of our vehicles. We have an ideal replacement cycle of replacing a bus every 12 years, given its economic value lifetime cycle. Therefore, one-12th of our fleet should be replaced every year to be most efficient. That equates to nearly 100 buses. Any growth will require extra buses. Between last year and now we have added about 40 buses to the network. The NTA funded 102, of which 62 would have been replacement vehicles for older vehicles that went out of the system. We get significant benefits from them and they show on our customer experience numbers. The Deputy mentioned Wi-Fi. We also have USB charging points. Every bus is wheelchair accessible. They have Euro 6 standard engines. Replacing a 16-year old bus with one that meets the Euro 6 standard has a significant impact on the environment. In addition the vehicles are much nicer inside, which also attracts customers.