Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

Not unlike other semi-State companies, the CIE group of companies has a proud record of employing people with disabilities. A certain percentage, with which the Deputy will be familiar, must be employed. There is an obligation on the semi-State companies, in particular. I believe the record is quite good on that. The difficulties we have with the companies on the disability issue in general is about the accessibility issue about which there is no doubt. We have covered some of that in our submission, as did Mr. Delaney and Ms Hill. The Deputy as well as everyone else knows that funding plays a huge part in the ability of the companies to facilitate accessibility. That is a huge issue which the Deputy touched upon himself in this opening remarks. In the past ten years alone, €100 million has come out of the subvention to public transport in this country. People and politicians as well sometimes think that this reduction - and we speak about it a lot - is just about workers' wages. It is not just about that; it is about the rights the Deputy has spoken about, where the plethora of unmanned stations, as I said in my submission, has now mushroomed directly as a reduction of the workforce and, by extension, a reduction of the funding.

I am aware I did not answer the Deputy's question as directly as he might wish. The CIE companies - we do knock them at times - are the employers and we are the employees' representative but we tend to circle the wagons when it comes issues like this concerning their ability to employ people with disabilities and we try to work with them in relation to access for people with disabilities.