Mr. Trevor Donnelly:

As the Minister of State has pointed out, the volume and usage comprise a significant factor for us. This year to date, we have had the guts of 4 million visitors across our network. This is more or less the same as the number we had in pre-Covid times. Foreign usage has been replaced with increased domestic usage, which obviously has an impact on sites. A specific issue for us is not so much the numbers but the fact that the sites are being used at a different time than they were. We are finding that we are having peak systems during our traditional downtime, when we would do the type of repair work in question. If a track is used a lot in the winter, it has a greater impact than in the summer months. As is the case every year, the upgrading of our sites takes place constantly. Even this year, we upgraded 12 km of surfaces in Coole, and we upgraded a similar amount in Derrycrag and elsewhere. We have spent the guts of €500,000 upgrading roads and trails in Killarney National Park. This is something that goes on but, as with everything, any capital budget we have is useful in this regard.