Ms Anne Graham:

First, I wish to make clear that the decision of Bus Éireann was a commercial one as it related to its Expressway service, which is operated on a commercial basis. Bus Éireann made a decision in September to alter or withdraw certain services and that decision has now been implemented across a number of services, including the X12. The role of the NTA is to assess the services that remain and to determine whether there is a public service obligation to put in additional services associated with the towns that have experienced a reduced service or no service at all. In the assessment we carried out, we determined that along the X12 route, which served Nenagh, Roscrea and Portlaoise, there are sufficient services remaining in those towns such that there is no public service obligation for us to put in additional services. Regarding the other routes, namely, the X20 and the X8, we determined that a public service obligation remained for certain locations.

In those cases, we asked Bus Éireann to retain a smaller number of services on those routes to fulfil the public service obligation until such time as there is either another operator operating on a commercial basis or we are in a position to tender out for a number of services to provide the alternative, which possibly will be the case for the X8. For the X12, our assessment is that the remaining services fulfil the public service obligation. It will not match the service level that was in place before Expressway pulled out but it certainly means that the towns remain served by connections.