Mr. Robert O'Mahony:

I will deal with the fare structure and linkages to rail services in Cork. At the moment, in conjunction with the authority, we are reviewing the west Cork network and there are a number of prime issues that we are looking at, one of which is connectivity to and from railway services. The concept we are developing at the moment includes operating all of west Cork services to both the bus station and the rail station in Cork. It will not just be in the morning peak, it will be throughout the day.

As part of our planning process, where there is a rail hub, wherever we are redesigning a timetable, the priority is to make sure that an early morning bus, as far as possible, meets the first train which will allow people to make a day trip to Dublin that is, within a 24 hour period. We are doing that in August in Ennis, where there will be early morning services from Kilkee and Doonbeg.

The fare structure we work with is an historic one that was developed in the 1940s and 1950s and was based on the distance a person travelled and based on the longer distance, the fare tapered off. It is not suitable to a modern transport environment and we are working with the authority to revise that. In December of last year, as part of the fares determination that the authority approved, we reduced the number of stages, which is the price that is paid for the distance travelled. This had a significant impact in certain parts of the country.

We rolled out Leap nationwide. One can get a 30% discount on one's single fare. We accept that the fares that currently exist in west Cork, while they reduced slightly last year, are still at a level that is prohibitive, particularly to students.

We are about to start discussions jointly with the authority in terms of the fares determination for 2019 and west Cork is high on the agenda in terms of coming up with a proposal to deliver better value fares for our customers in west Cork.