Ms Vivienne Jupp:

First, let me say that I regret any difficulties we caused the committee. On the various dates that were proposed, at least one of this group was unavailable. I also had concerns about the discussions that were ongoing with our unions at this particular time. I spoke to the Acting Chairman and he understood those concerns and we were able to attend today. I asked the CEO of Dublin Bus to rearrange some leave so he could be here today. I will put that on the record by way of background.

In respect of the financial position of CIE, many things have contributed to where we are today and there are many things we are doing to extricate ourselves from that. The overall economic situation has a major impact on us and our business generally tracks consumer spending. As it goes down, spending on public transport also goes down. We then had the reduction in the PSO, and one can see around the garages at the moment that fuel prices have gone up again. These are all very difficult things for us to negotiate our way through but we have done a significant amount in taking costs out of the business. As everybody said, they have been able to match broadly the reduction in revenue, but on top of that we have had the PSO reduction and the fuel price increases. Obviously, we understand the overall situation the Government is in and so we have been making our point about the impact of the reduction in subvention in the context of the broader picture. We must understand where we sit versus everything else and the decisions made at that level.

In terms of the actions we are taking, our goal is to continue to provide a comprehensive service to our customers and communities around the country. We continue to work on that. Given the capacity we have, our focus is to try to drive extra passengers onto all of our service offerings. Many measures have been put in place which we are highlighting to our customers to encourage them to come back to public transport. There are apps on all mobile phones that can tell one when a bus or train is due, which is a great advantage to people. Wi-Fi internet connections are broadly available, which means that when one is sitting on a train or bus, one can do some work. We are making our customers aware of that and in the past six to nine months we have seen an improvement in the passenger numbers and, therefore, in revenue.

In respect of union negotiations, it would probably be fair to ask the individual companies that take prime responsibility for negotiating with our unions to outline their comments.