Ms Fiona Ross:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. His figures are correct. There was an increase of approximately €200 million in 2020 compared with 2019. As regards a resolution, it is a somewhat sensitive time as a ballot of the trade union members of the 1951 scheme is currently under way. The whole board of CIÉ - my three fellow chairpersons sit on the main board with me - is very confident that the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, proposal represents the optimum way forward to get us to a minium funding standard which, by the way, does not address the deficit as a whole but certainly allows us to move forward with our plan to improve the deficit in the future and to look at our asset allocation on the asset side of the balance sheet. It is important to note that we made great progress in 2019 and 2020. I refer to the regular wages scheme. The majority of our staff have voted in favour of that proposal and it is moving forward now to statutory instrument stage and implementation. As a board, we very much look forward to a positive outcome from the ballot but, obviously, that is not for us to say at this point in time; it is a matter for the members' discretion in terms of how they wish to vote. We certainly recognise that this is by far the biggest issue facing us in terms of the long-term financial sustainability of the group and we remain completely focused on it.