Mr. Martin Nolan:

The big saving in bus transport is getting 50 people out of a car on to a bus; even if it is a 20 year old bus, it will save more. The new vehicles we have are as good as the hybrids with little or no emissions. There are no double deck gas buses. One would normally use gas buses, but we can put more people on to double deck buses which are not run on gas.

The bus is considered a short-term asset, it is not like buying a loco engine that will last 25 years. It is shorter than that as within seven years the major life is gone. The time is not right to bring something in but it is moving in that direction.

The school rules came from a Government review body. l can assure members there were as many complaints about the catchment boundary system as there are about the new system.

There is an appeals mechanism for bullying. If members want to bring an instance of bullying to me, I can perhaps sort some of them out for them.

On the issue of private bus operators picking up students during weather alerts when the Bus Éireann buses do not pick up students, some 90% of the service we provide is contracted to private operators. We have nearly 4,000 vehicles out there that we bring in from the private side.