Ms Anne Graham:

Services on the long-distance routes are operated primarily on a commercial basis by the likes of Matthews Coaches but also Bus Éireann's Expressway service. The demand for those services comes through us and we licence them, rather than design them. We operate a two-level system - I would not say two-tier - and those services operate across the network. We have commercial bus services provided without State subsidies and we then have our subsidised services, which we try to integrate as best we can with those commercial services.