Ms Fiona Ross:

I hope I can do justice to some of the questions today, and if I cannot give a full answer today I will certainly report back in due course.

I referenced the commonality of interests between the NTA and CIÉ. Throughout my short months since the Minister made the appointment and appearing today something of interest to a lot of people are the roles of CIÉ and the NTA relative to each other, and it is something that needs further thought by all of the relevant stakeholders to understand and have the CIÉ group and the NTA work better together. I look forward to doing some work in this area.

With regard to the pension issue the Deputy mentioned, I read the transcript of the meeting here in March and I realise how complex the issue is and how much detail was provided to the committee at the time. I feel I am ill equipped to give any detailed guidance on the pension issue. I understand some meetings are due to take place this week, which will move some of the issues forward, in particular with regard to the legal opinion. I do not know the outcome of those meetings as they have not been held yet, but I am hopeful they will move forward in a positive direction along the lines the Deputy indicated.

The board will soon have three vacancies. We have three independent non-executive directors, two of whom have indicated they will not serve a second term and one of whom will. That will create two vacancies and I already had one vacancy on the board. I have already communicated with the Department my request for additional independent non-executive directors. I also have four worker directors and I believe there will be one change there. The answer to the question is my board is not fully constituted and I look forward to getting some support from the Minister in filling these very important roles, in particular relating to the audit committee.

I believe CIÉ is not subject to freedom of information legislation but I could be incorrect on this. I will come back to the Deputy if I am wrong on this.

With regard to the challenge to all of the operating companies, one can learn quite a lot in a month but not enough to give a very considered opinion about how I might improve the financial sustainability of all operating companies at this particular point in time. They have all looked hard at their operations and funding levels. In the immediate timeframe, they are working through as many productivity improvements as they can to improve services for the travelling public. Again, this is something we should come back to with more details on how in the short term we can improve things for the travelling public ahead of some of the bigger infrastructural projects which, of course, will make a bigger difference. They are challenging and the organisations are challenged, and it is about figuring out how best to do this.

With regard to the PSO contracts, the timeline is imminent and there will be some announcements in the autumn from the NTA on how it will approach this. I do not want to pre-empt any of these discussions or decisions because I am just not aware of how the NTA will approach it. Certainly the CIÉ group will be ready, willing and able to take our share of any of the PSO contracts that come our way and we will seek actively to do so. This is clear from our point of view.

I believe CIÉ Tours is in single digit millions profitability and that is the answer to that question.

I was briefing myself on Rosslare Europort on the back of the speech of the Commissioner, Phil Hogan, this week. I will have to return to the Deputy on the possibilities for Rosslare Europort and I apologise for not having more details to share with him today.