Ms Aisling Dunne:

From our perspective in Bolt, we say competition is a good thing. It is good for the users and ultimately this is about providing a good service for the users to get them to make that shift. We have seen in some of the trials in the UK where there is just one provider that there is no incentive to provide a good service at an affordable rate and that there is no motivation because they have a captive market.

In general, as is the case across business the world over, competition is a good thing. For somewhere like Dublin, especially if the councils are going to work together and do a joined-up scheme, it would be better for users there if one did not have operators for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council, DCC. We would therefore be advocating that the councils work together and do a joint tender or process and that this would be the best for the users but probably not as good for the operators because there is less opportunity to service Dublin then.

If they do that, there needs to be three or perhaps four operators who cover Dublin. That provides that level of competition and the need to provide a strong service.

One of the things that my colleague mentioned there was that if one was the sole provider, one is more incentivised to provide infrastructure such as charging racks. Bolt provides charging racks in a number of cities and we have just launched them in recent months. They act as an incentive for parking and while they are parked, they are also being charged. This is a very efficient way to charge them without the need for an operations team to do it. These are very easily installed and removed.

The fact that one has competition should not be a reason why one could not do that in a city and make that investment. Bolt’s perspective also is that we are not just here for six months, a year, two or three years, but that this is a long-term commitment to the country to provide a range of services and we see competition as a positive.

I do not want to repeat some of the things but I do agree-----