Mr. Stephen Kent:

Regarding the commercial corridors in general, this is a telling point and I would not have said anything different from the NTA. Many of the commercial services are experiencing fragile recovery. While there is growth, costs are also increasing for all, as the committee has probably heard play out. The price of diesel, wages, spare parts, maintenance and capital costs are all rising. Everything is there. We are trying to effectively run a service. Thankfully, the passengers are also there and we want to continue to operate the services but it is a fragile market. When a company is awarded a licence it is very important that a demand assessment be put on the corridor so that everybody has an opportunity to at least operate services at some level of return that will allow them to reinvest in the vehicles or afford a pay rise that people are likely to expect. That is why I say that those corridors are fragile but recovering slowly and will require further investment in the future.