Ms Jean O'Sullivan:

I thank the Deputy. From a Bus Éireann point of view, if we just take drivers, we had 217 recruited this year, which is probably nearly as much as we had in a full year last year. We have a different issue from our colleagues present in that we actually have a national recruitment campaign. We do not, therefore, have the challenges Dublin Bus has in a large, saturated market.

There are a couple of things we are finding within the labour market. From a bus driver point of view, those who have existing D licences are already in employment and they are typically happy in employment and do not want to move. Our focus, therefore, like Dublin Bus, Go-Ahead Ireland and others here, is in the training facilities.

When the opportunities come up nationally, the biggest opportunity for us will be in Cork with the potential of maybe 200 drivers over the next year or so. We will go into the same type of system Dublin Bus has just gone through in terms of that mass recruitment, which requires training schools, and our recruitment will be through the training school.

The challenge is that it is most likely going to also have to be an international campaign. We will probably look to south Wales and other areas that are a kind of commutable distance to Cork. Housing will be an issue for us at that stage. Anybody who is being attracted to Ireland at the moment is having difficulty in terms of not only the cost of relocation and cost of living here but also finding accommodation. Our biggest growth areas will be Cork, Limerick and Galway and all of those are now emerging into the housing issue.

We are trying to do our best to try to make sure we have a good lead time into a lot of those recruitment campaigns in order that we can accelerate the growth opportunities within the NTA. From the ambition point of view, therefore, we are trying to get out ahead of it. We have more time maybe than some of our colleagues in the room have had on the basis that we know what is coming in the next 24 months. We are not complacent. It will be very challenging for us but at least we have a little bit more time to plan it.