Mr. Tim Gaston:

To be honest, we do not get hung up trying to define and decide. The same team that is looking at the Connecting Ireland plan is heavily involved in towns services planning as well because the two have to work together hand in hand. Clearly, if a Connecting Ireland service is being run, it will connect villages and settlements to towns. The same teams are looking at those together. We do not make a particular distinction in the funding. We are using the same funding that comes through Connecting Ireland to provide for town services as part of the package we have from the Government.

I will address a couple of other points the Senator raised. I am not currently constrained by funding for bus poles. When I say "resources", it is about getting the right engineers with the right skills into our organisation and others, and then getting the construction companies to respond to tenders. We are finding that the biggest challenge at present but we are working through that and taking a new approach or, at least, an enhanced approach over the next number of months to see if we can accelerate that. As I said, the thousand odd - we will come back with the exact number - is not enough. We need to find a way to speed that up.