Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

——have been deferred due to a prior application. If I did not have the Transport Act 1932 as it stands and the 1958 Act, which is beloved by some people in the transport sector, we might be able to put a more streamlined system in place as regards approvals. That is certainly something I will be delighted to do, chronologically, but we cannot have it both ways. I must operate in accordance with the law and the recent highly publicised case in relation to this. The Department has to follow the law. It cannot ignore it and the Minister cannot put himself above the law.

The sequence of events is that if a private sector operator applies to run a service on a particular route that must be judged and decided upon before any subsequent applications can be made.

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