Mr. Graham Doyle:

The funding for the free travel scheme was frozen as long ago as 2010, if I recall correctly. The funding for the scheme is approximately €80 million, approximately €65 million of which goes into the CIE group. The Department of Social Protection agrees the extent of the overall funding for the various operators that operate free travel services, including some private operators. When I said that the freezing of a scheme like this "causes issues", I suppose I meant that the demand for free travel has certainly increased in recent years in a number of cases.