Ms Anne Graham:

We have not spent anything to date because we have just received for this year the first budgetary allocation from Government of €5.6 million. We will require additional funds year on year up to €50 million annually, to be able to deliver the Connecting Ireland plan that we published. Our PSO budget is allocated on an annual basis as part of the standard budgetary process. We seek additional funds through the Department and it is up to the Government to decide if those funds are made available to us or not.

At least we have a plan in place and know what funds are required. The good thing about Connecting Ireland is that it sets out of the network of services and a minimum frequency of services but, if we want to go further in meeting our climate action targets, the frequency can be amended and the operational hours can be extended to meet the demand. If a further reduction of carbon emissions and the provision of more services are required by the Government, the budgetary requirement could be higher.