Mr. Feargal Barton:

I will take one or two of those questions and Mr. Buckley might come in then. Mr. James McGinley is in the waiting room. He is trying to get in, but for some reason he is not able to get in. Perhaps someone could help him.

Regarding funding for 2020, it was drawn down in March 2021. It was done on a very specific basis with regard to the coaches we had in our fleet. It was very specific on the year of the coaches because it was very much focused on tourism. It was not for private hire or any other element of the coach transport sector. Mr. Buckley gave an example regarding the funding for that. We have been out of business since March 2020, but many of our operators have not operated vehicles in the tourism sector since November 2019. The winter period is normally our quiet period and our busier period is from March to October. During the pandemic, the revenue that would have been generated in the 2020 period was just not there, so a lot of operators went to their banks and put a stay on their payments. When we received the funding, the operators went to the banks to say they received it and they were able to pay perhaps a lump sum off against a certain amount of payments. As Mr. Buckley mentioned, the grant was per vehicle and probably covered about three months of repayments on one brand new coach, which we were very grateful for, but members can see already there is a huge gap in trying to fund those vehicles because they are parked up and not operating.

A question was asked about what will happen as we move into 2021. No doubt there will be casualties because some of the operators are nearly in a holding process and when they get back into operation again, they will have to start paying for their vehicles. Part of the funding we are looking for will help those operators get to next year. It is as if we are halfway across the ocean. The Government has helped us to get to this point, but we need to get the rest of the way across, to get us to the next period when we can start to operate again on our own two feet. That is the situation on the funding side.

Regarding the staffing side, we mentioned that there have been casualties in the business. We lost a lot of good quality tour drivers. Some left the business because of their age profile or because they decided it was time to step away after a long career. Others have gone into other businesses and enterprises and they might feel that is more appropriate for them moving forward. There is no question but there will be a staff shortage when we come back into operation. That is already being seen in some areas, such as the school transport division, where there is a shortage of drivers. Staffing will be an element, but part of the process will be to work with Fáilte Ireland to try to put training courses in place in order that we can upskill new staff. If I have not addressed something, Mr. Buckley might address those issues as well.