Mr. Hugh Creegan:

On the bus poles, we started a programme some years ago to replace bus poles because we saw around the country that many of them were corroded. In many places, there was no information on them and in some places there were not even poles. While there were yellow poles across Dublin, there were red, grey and other coloured poles in most other locations. We then came up with a standardised pole design. We consulted with various groups in this regard and, on foot of feedback, we made big changes to the concept. We put in what is called a carousel. The information panel in the middle was always black plastic, but we have changed that to yellow plastic now. The sign at the top of the pole, which we call a flag and is very large, was planned to be blue. We changed this to yellow and green, mainly yellow. I think there is more yellow now present in a much more visible way on those poles than would have been the case originally, as well as much more information. We are beginning to roll these out around the country.

Turning to the issue of motorised wheelchairs on buses, we are aware that many of these can be much larger than a standard wheelchair. In designing the buses, we are conscious of this fact. There is only so much we can squeeze into the space, including how to get access from the door into the area concerned. We follow a European standard and we try to go well above that. In some of our fleet vehicles, we are significantly above that standard, while in others we are above the standard but not by as much. We have been willing to go back and reconsider. I recall that when we introduced the buses in Waterford, while the wheelchair space was big enough, the gangway to get there was hard to manoeuvre in. A person using a motorised wheelchair was not able to make it in. We got modifications made to the door, the driver's cab and one or two other places, including the stanchion, to create more space. If there are things like this that we can do, we are not averse to doing them. It is impossible for us, though, to cater for the largest of these type of vehicles.