Ms Anne Graham:

I will commence and my colleague, Mr. Creegan, will support me. On the funding for Local Link and the expansion of its services, I meant the funding of the operational costs. We need additional subsidy to be able to provide for those services, because the fare revenue would not be sufficient to meet the operational costs.

We need additional PSO for expanding the services. It is more on the operational side than on the capital funding side, to be able to provide new services. That is across the board, not just for Local Link. It would apply to all our urban and rural subsidised public transport services.

As regards providing them, it would automatically be a requirement that they be fully wheelchair accessible. In terms of Local Link, we have a very high level of accessibility across those services. We are now in a position to be able to grant aid the purchase of fleet for the fleet-owning rural transport operators, so they can now transfer their fleets to being wheelchair accessible. We are also, through the tendering process, requiring the fleet to be wheelchair accessible and low floor as much as possible. We have a very high level of accessibility through that service and we want to get to fully accessible on rural transport services. That will be part of the expansion. In terms of connecting Ireland, it is more about where those services are going to be. Later this year, we will start the consultation across Ireland on where those services will be.

My colleague, Mr. Creegan, might respond on bus stops and shelters.