James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the example I provided, they operate in tandem. That is just one example of countless others around the country, I imagine. I cannot see how it is in any way sustainable when the NTA is providing hundreds of millions in PSO funding on an annual basis if Expressway can come in and, frankly, undercut the NTA.

The other point I want to make is that the prices the NTA is charging rural transport users outside of the fare zones, such as the green zone in Cork and the ones around the Dublin metropolitan region, are extortionate. This needs urgent attention. I know what a part of Ms Graham's response is going to be, namely, the lack of funding her organisation gets. Can she not make a case here in the committee to call for that funding or to describe what the NTA needs to do in order to bring PSO service prices down to a level where people will leave their car at home and transition to public transport?