Mr. Ray Hernan:

Regarding Senator O'Sullivan's comments on carbon emissions, I will elaborate on what Ms Anne Graham has emphasised. Since 2015, all buses purchased by Bus Éireann, in conjunction with the NTA, have been compliant with Euro 6 standards. Euro 6 standard emissions are 98% less than the emissions of standard diesel buses that existed even ten or 15 years ago, and, therefore, emissions have declined significantly. The emissions of a Euro 6 bus now is comparable to the emissions of a compressed natural gas bus, which is a significant reduction. As Ms Graham said, we are working with the NTA on other types of buses - electric, hybrid and compressed natural gas, CNG - which is very much the focus of the Department now. We are beginning to review these alternative bus types. The last 135 buses to which I referred will still be Euro 6 buses, but thereafter we will look at acquiring other ones. To be clear, there has been a significant reduction in emissions in recent years.

Regarding connectivity, particularly in the context of congestion and timetables, congestion has had a significant impact on our ability to align ourselves with the timetables and connectivity with other services. This is something we face daily, to such an extent that we have put a large team together internally to work on this. This year, more than 80% of all our routes will have new timetables implemented to very much take cognisance of connectivity not just with our own bus services, but also with train services.

In response to Deputy Canney, the issues surrounding school rules are noted.

It is something with which we continue to deal with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. As a bus operator, I very much promote the concept of BusConnects, possibly as a greater and more flexible option than rail. We can provide better value for money than a rail option, and probably a speedier way to market as well, in terms of implementing a modal shift from car to bus, at least. I understand, however, that in order to move significant volumes of people, rail is the way to go. There is significant investment going into Galway, Limerick and Cork, in particular, in terms of additional services. In those three cities, we have seen double-digit growth over the past two years in passenger numbers.