Mr. Tim Gaston:

On the fares side, we just completed a fares strategy, which we published last week. We shared that with public representatives and got some feedback. The fares will move nationally to a structure that is based on the distance as the crow flies between A and B. There will be a boarding charge plus a charge per kilometre across all of our networks including Bus Éireann, Irish Rail and Local Link. It will take some time to implement the change in fare structures because some of them involve quite significant changes to the existing computer systems that run fares, such as the Leap system and other systems on Bus Éireann and Irish Rail services. We plan to publish a fares determination in the early summer period setting out what the new fare structures will be and an indicative timetable as to how quickly those will be rolled out.

In terms of rural Ireland, when we introduce rural regular services, we try as much as possible to replicate the existing Bus Éireann structure, bearing in mind the direction I already described us moving towards. The rural regular structure is similar but not identical to the Bus Éireann structure. It is all in the mix to be changed shortly.