Ms Anne Graham:

On Local Link, particularly in the Deputy's area, as Mr. Doocey said, we published the Connecting Ireland plan. It is a five-year plan in terms of delivery of additional services. We cannot go everywhere all at once, unfortunately, as there is a programme. We provided 38 new and improved services last year. We hope to provide up to 70 this year. That will keep going as we get to the end of the programme. Every year, we publish our programme for the year which lists all the services we will do. We publish quarterly bulletins on how we are doing in terms of delivery. We can give the Deputy the information associated with her county. We are still planning for what will be done next year. That will be subject to funding. We try to ensure that we spread improvements across the country, rather than focusing on one area. I am aware that improvements have been made in Cavan. We try to get the Cavan town and other Local Link services to integrate and interchange at Cavan bus station as much as we can.

This is part of the roll-out. Mr. Creegan will talk to the members about the yellow poles and flags, but the issue around wheelchair spaces and buggies in them is a challenge for all our operators, and particularly on busy services. Most people, if they see a wheelchair, will move a buggy if they have one in the wheelchair space. We launched the video several years ago, and we have just refreshed this, to try to encourage people to realise that the wheelchair space is primarily for wheelchair users. We now provide a separate buggy space on many of our services but not on all of them. There is, therefore, room for both. We just want all our customers to recognise that a wheelchair space should first of all be for the wheelchair users and that they get priority in that space. We are proposing to have another campaign around this issue to try to encourage people to ensure this priority usage is kept for wheelchair users.

Turning to wheelchair-accessible taxis, we publish a list on our website of what wheelchair-accessible services are available. Additionally, part of the conditions associated with getting a grant related to providing a wheelchair-accessible taxi or hackney is to be available. Applicants must produce records for us to show that they make themselves available at particular times to ensure those vehicles are available for those users who need them. We monitor this information. If there is any particular area the committee would like us to look at, we will certainly do this.