Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----and that maybe there are those international comparisons of how to do it more efficiently. That is fine.

I will ask each of the individual groups a couple of questions. They pointed towards the labour market. Some recommendations are to look not just outside the State but outside of the continent if we are looking at the critical skills list. How is that reflected in the major recruitment campaigns by the three providers here? Are they seeing people outside of the State and outside of the European Union? What is the turnover like in it? Are people training as bus drivers and then saying they will move to another operator or to another industry altogether? Has that changed over time? There were a number of questions with regard to the cost of living but the witnesses might just give us a sense of that labour market and turnover.

They are not specifically being asked today but for the three providers, again, how has performance improved on the back of their recruitment campaigns? Obviously, there has been much focus recently on last year's figures, including no-shows, fines and performance, which relate to frustration for customers and passengers. How has the recruitment campaign impacted on that?

Related to that and particularly for the two big providers, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann, I am hearing from colleagues around the country that the NTA is talking about delay in the roll-out of the expansion of services such as BusConnects. I can only presume that is coming from a nervousness from Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann. Is that the case or are they telling the NTA that they want to be as ambitious as it is, and they will deliver on the ambitions that, in fairness, the Government and the NTA have, which are fully supported across the Houses, to expand public transport services in a big way?