Mr. Tim Gaston:

Yes, there is no doubt the last few months have been very difficult for all public transport, including Go-Ahead, Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Irish Rail and the Luas. In particular, from the October-November timeline and over the Christmas period, we had what could only be described as exponential growth in staff absences. The biggest challenge for operators is that staff were not in a position to give forward notice that they were pinged as a close contact or that they had a positive test result themselves.