Mr. Gerry Mullins:

On the transfer of undertakings and CIE staff, one of the members asked about the downside. There is an issue here. If things go the way we expect, a great deal more work will be done by the private sector and less work will be done by the State companies. Inevitably, those companies will contract. What will happen with the staff? First, it is written in the legislation that this would happen over a five year period starting in 2014. We are two years away from that so we are looking at a seven year timeline. Over that period there will be natural attrition of the Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus ranks. Second, those companies are introducing cost saving measures. There will be people who simply wish to transfer across, as there will be more job opportunities on our side, and there will be lay-offs. However, one cannot hold up the progress that public transport must make in this country simply because there will be a cost to Bus Éireann or Dublin Bus in laying off staff. There will also be benefits to the two companies. We expect to end up inevitably buying vehicles from them, so cash will be going in the opposite direction. In addition, we will be hiring staff if everything goes the way we plan.

I will move to Deputy O'Mahony's questions. First, I wish to express my gratitude to him. When we were here a few weeks ago, it looked as if we would not be invited to appear before the committee. Deputy O'Mahony explained that he would look into it, after which we were invited. We are grateful for that.

The Deputy asked about membership of our organisation. We have 65 companies, all family owned. There are 1,900 operators in the country, but a very large proportion of this sector consists of one and two vehicle companies. Our organisation was formed as a coach tourism trade group and one had to have at least two coaches. Traditionally, the slightly larger companies were members of our group and the minibus drivers and smaller companies may have joined other organisations. It is safe to say that even though they are not our members, we are speaking largely on their behalf. The combined fleet of the Coach Tourism and Transport Council, CTTC, is more than 1,000 vehicles. We employ approximately 2,000 people directly and several thousand indirectly. Therefore, even though we are a small number of the 1,900 we are quite a large proportion.

The Deputy asked about the downside. It is a little like the Aer Lingus and Ryanair situation. Aer Lingus suffered when the system changed. There is no doubt it went through a great deal of pain. However, it has come out the far side as a very strong, lean, efficient and dynamic company. It was not like that before the airline industry was restructured. Undoubtedly, the company and its staff went through pain. Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus will have to go through a similar process, and that is the downside. However, we cannot let that downside stop the progress this country must make in terms of public transport. PSO services are too expensive. We are proposing to reduce the cost by €20 million per year. That is a win for the Exchequer and the taxpayer. We are proposing that we provide the services. We are very good at it and we have proven that year in, year out over the decades, despite the best efforts of the Government to stop us in all sorts of ways, unfairly in most cases. We are offering as good a public transport service, if not better, and we are offering to do it at a lower cost. They are two wins. There will be a downside from the point of view of Bus Éireann, which the committee will hear about later, but we cannot let that relatively small group of people stop the progress this country needs to make. There is also the capital investment issue whereby the State has invested very heavily in vehicles. All our vehicles are self-financed.

The Deputy asked about Belmullet and Senator Mooney asked about Roosky and various other places. I will ask Noel Matthews to discuss that with regard to some services being inter-urban and others stopping at small villages along the way.