Ms Fiona Ross:

Ultan Courtney started out as a bus driver and was then a contemporary of mine at Trinity College Dublin. He came through that way.

Great credit is due to the Public Appointments Service. Great improvements have been made in the recruitment of non-executive directors to State boards and in the process in general. Mr. Geoghegan and I are here today because of that process. It has improved significantly in recent years. Having served on various public sector boards, both here and in the UK, I am a great advocate for it. I spread the word as much as I can in encouraging people to take up places on State boards. It is hard work but it is challenging and important. We need to get the word out a little more about those opportunities. Many improvements have been made. I certainly look forward to engaging in an active recruitment process to replace some of the board members we have lost. I know the operating companies also face similar challenges.

On the partnership and relationship models, from my career in general I would have seen multiple different operating and business models in operation in many countries over the years. We are evolving to that a little bit more in the public transport space in Ireland. That is a challenge but it is also to be welcomed. It is a necessary part of the future. Everyone cannot do everything. We certainly need to have some competition, efficiencies and alternative sources of funding in the system. We need to be open-minded to what might be possible alternate ways of delivering services. The challenge for the operating companies, which are willing and able to take on that challenge, is to look at how best they can do that. I certainly look forward to working with them. They are fairly autonomous in how they approach these matters but, from a group point of view, we hope to work together.

I will come back to the Senator on capex. I do not want to give any false or ballpark information on this. Between the NTA and the Government, we are aware of significant capital funding being made available to the sector as a whole. Somewhere in the region of €8 billion has been announced for big projects such as MetroLink and BusConnects. Yesterday, €2 billion was announced for the latter. We are certainly seeing welcome significant capital investment from the State into the public transport network. Our job at CIÉ and the operating companies is to make best use of the funding available to us and come up with some innovative ways of achieving those goals.

The property portfolio in CIÉ generates a small amount of money and a good income. It has certainly been subject to review along the way. I look forward to having another look at that to deal with the points made by Deputy Troy in respect of landbanks and ensuring that we make the best use of our property portfolio.