Mr. Hugh Creegan:

There are two parts to the roll-out, namely, infrastructure and services. On the roll-out of the infrastructure project, we have now got planning consent for all 12 of the core bus corridors. The construction contract is signed for the first of those corridors, which is from Liffey Valley to the city centre. We are hopeful of signing a second contract for the Ballymun-Finglas corridor at the end of the October. We see the remaining ten schemes rolling out over a number of years. We cannot build all 12 schemes together. The traffic system in Dublin could not cater for that. It will be done in three tranches of four schemes each time and will take about seven years to complete them all. People will see them incrementally delivered along the way. These projects are all subject to the funding being available. We will have to wait and see.

On the services side, the challenge has been resources. The members have heard it here. It is a challenge to get driver and mechanic resources and it has impacted the pace of the roll-out. If resources are available to support the remaining BusConnects services and if the funding to run the services is also available, we will see the implementation finishing around the end of 2027. The next phase of BusConnects starts on 19 October with the F spine.