Mr. Hugh Creegan:

In terms of bringing along our transport accessibility manager, we thought there were limited numbers. That is the only reason we did not bring her along; there was nothing more to it than that. We assumed that it was two people - myself and the chief executive - who is due to join shortly.

On the public realm and interaction with local authorities, as the committee will be aware, we fund quite a few of these schemes ourselves. In the schemes we fund, we have much interaction and try to ensure the design meets the standards it needs to meet. On other schemes we are not funding, we do not have very much interaction, and probably none at all is the honest position. More and more of these schemes tend to have a component of cycling, walking or public transport so more and more we are involved in one shape or form in them.

On engaging with Irish Rail, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann disability groups, yes, our transport accessibility manager engages with them. I think the Senator asked the question more in the line of new fleet. In terms of new fleet, it is difficult to link that engagement into a competitive procurement competition so we have done things like getting a representative of the Irish Wheelchair Association to the manufacturing plant of one type of vehicle we are manufacturing to review the wheelchair arrangements before the fleet was finished. In other cases we have done viewings and inspections with the Irish Wheelchair Association and other groups after the first vehicle is delivered because it is very hard for people to understand a design on paper and they need to see it in real life. We have made some modifications to vehicles on foot of those engagements.

I am aware that there is a single-deck type of bus, particularly in the Waterford area, where the access way into the wheelchair space is a bit tight. We had worked with the manufacturer there to modify a couple of things and install them on the vehicles. We wanted to run those modifications past some of the disability groups but Covid intervened. There are some vehicles that may be the subject of the complaint and we have heard about it. We will do a modification that may not resolve the issue for everybody but will resolve it for some people.

On bus colours and signage, and we normally call it bus livery, the Senator is right that there are at least two different types of livery floating around at the moment. We could invest and repaint all of the buses in one go but most buses and coaches are repainted on a four-year schedule. Our view was to transition it over four years so in that way there would be no additional cost to be paid from changing the livery. That is the logic of just having two livery currently.