Ms Anne Graham:

We recognise that, Senator, and we have said that in our opening statement. We apologised that the service is not at the level or the standard that we want it to be at. It is not at the standard it was at in 2019, when we saw a huge increase in the number of people travelling, because they were happy with the services being delivered. We need to get back to those standards. The real issue is the lack of drivers, and as the committee has heard, we are working with the operators to try to put back the level of service that had been in place. We are trying to do that as quickly as possible. The Senator had specific questions for us around credit and debit cards and what the story is in relation to cash. The account based ticketing system is under procurement right now. It will take at least a year to negotiate that contract. It then needs to be implemented, starting in Dublin, and then moving on a national basis. It is coming but it is a quite significant procurement of an IT system. We have to progress carefully.