Mr. Tomás Ó Ruairc:

I will draw on both of the questions, build on the answers provided by my colleague and address the second question as well. The Government's big ambition was very clearly set out in the decision made last year to increase numbers by 100,000 by 2030. When the Minister was before this committee some weeks ago, she spoke about how it is a multi-annual process to get to that point. Growth will be challenging in terms of the availability of drivers in particular areas and alignment with the PSO routes that are needed with school transport, which is a project in and of itself and the Department of Transport is leading on that. Yes, 14 pilot schemes might seem like a small number but there is also the increase of approximately 12,000 since the benchmark started, which is not insignificant.

The first step to reduce the eligibility criteria to 1 km for primary schools and 2 km for post-primary schools has been the pilot schemes. As part of the Estimates process each year, including this year, our goal is to get the maximum possible resources to support further growth in the number of pilot schemes, further alignment and the further role of technology that Bus Éireann will always be responsible for implementing.

The challenges are very real. The resources are one challenge in terms of the current budgetary context. In addition, there is the labour market supply challenge, which the task force has been established to address, particularly end to end. For example, the RSA, I think, is part of that task force as well. It is not just a matter of increasing the provision of training programmes, increasing the numbers on training programmes or enhancing the eligibility for those training programmes. It is about making sure that when people complete training programmes, they wind up driving buses here in Ireland. Given the labour market challenge that we are experiencing, those are real challenges.