Mr. John Mulligan:

Irish Rail has set itself very high standards so the cost per crossing is roughly €1 million. It could do it cheaper if the standards were reduced, in particular on the more minor roads. They are designed in such a way that every automatic level crossing has four barriers, but on a minor road or little boreen, the Commission for Railway Regulation, CRR, which regulates this, could change the standards slightly and it could be done for less. To do that alone, we are talking about a budget of about €11 million, but that would save roughly €1 million a year in operating costs, so over the lifetime of the capital costs the company would get the cost back and the operating costs would be reduced. That is a key point. As we said to Deputy Lowry, we would like to see a programme to abolish farmers' crossings.