Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is interesting that, in this day and age, €250 million has essentially been locked into a State agency's account. It has no immediate purpose for that fund and there is no provision to pay it back to the Government by way of a dividend, so it is locked in. We have to find a mechanism in order to use it for an appropriate purpose. I thank Deputy MacSharry for raising this issue. That is where it currently stands.

The next set of correspondence is category C, which is from individuals and other correspondence. Correspondence No. 2431C, dated 6 October 2019, is from an individual who has queried information provided to the committee on whether profits from the student transport scheme are or could be used to cross-subsidise Bus Éireann. This is a school transport issue, which was raised at a Committee of Public Accounts meeting on 28 Feb 2013. The letter quotes Deputy Paschal Donohoe, who was a member of the committee at the time, from the committee transcript. He was very concerned and wanted to verify that Bus Éireann was not using these funds for any purposes other than school transport.

The then Chairman, Deputy McGuinness, reiterated the same point. I think many people sought clarification on it. At this stage, we will request a note from the Department of Education and Skills on whether Bus Éireann's auditors have satisfied themselves on this question. As a member of the committee at that time, Deputy Donohoe wanted verification that this was the actual situation. We will try to get that.