Mr. Stephen Kent:

I will take the last question first. We have regular weekly interaction with the NTA regarding planning teams. We have a network planning team and the NTA has a similar team, which is looking at all those issues. The Deputy is right about small villages like Stamullen. There are many such towns and villages that, typically, we would be looking at. All these aspects again come back to the fact that within the direct award, as granted to us, there are still 220 routes. Several of those routes could possibly be changed and extended, as that is allowed under the direct award contract. Those changes allowed can involve alterations to scale and frequency and additional permeation. We know society is always changing, so the NTA addresses those aspects when it is possible to do so and it works on that process with us.

Turning to additional villages that may come on stream, the Deputy might be aware of an example of that happening just before Christmas when the small village of Portroe got a bus service for the first time and was connected to Limerick city.

That was certainly a part of the consultation with the NTA. However, it is the NTA that would make that decision and then we deploy the services to do that. Therefore, we are entirely reliant on funding being made available to pay for driver hours, to pay for the fuel, to pay for the maintenance and to pay for the vehicle. If that funding has been available, we have been providing it. As I said, we had a unique opportunity at Christmas. There were 112 jobs created in this business here and 26 additional vehicles deployed for a fleet, but that was all part of the Government stimulus that was created to connect all those additional frequency services in towns that went in. It came with an additional price tag. From the NTA's point of view, it was an investment by the State of an additional €10 million. That is what went in to deliver those levels of service. As I said, it is probably, certainly in my tenure here since 2013, the largest investment I have seen. We believe it is the largest, maybe, in 15 years. It was part of a Government stimulus package and I think that we will see the results of that. It is very encouraging if we can bring those in and connect them but, as I said, it still has to be the subject of an effectiveness and efficiency review. If a smaller village is not best suited by us, it may be addressed by Local Link or by another operator. That is typically the way it may end up happening because all of the PSO services are supplemented by commercial services.

Returning to Deputy O'Rourke's question on the State support, we have been very thankful during Covid because there has been a huge amount of additional funding provided for services, in particular, on the PSO side. We are currently recovering many of our costs, including lost revenue. During parts of Covid, we lost up to 80% of revenue and, in one extreme, 90%, which was at the very beginning. That, obviously, oscillated through the summer as reopenings occurred. The revenue deficit has been made good and the costs have effectively been recovered for the NTA during that period, including, as I would say here for the benefit of the public, a large amount of the additional investment in all of the sanitisation regimes and everything that we could deploy to make the service as safe as possible. I am glad to see, even at this point, that we have not had any Covid-related-----