Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

It is possible to quote statistics in support of any argument. I do not believe the Deputy is being fair in that regard. Deputy Broughan has a point in respect of this matter. I do not know the exact figure but the number of buses did increase somewhat during the period to which Deputy O'Dowd refers and the age of the bus fleet improved considerably. As a result, we now have the youngest bus fleet in Europe. Deputy O'Dowd is correct that the network remained largely the same. That was one of the failings of the system. However, the level of service of the network increased substantially. From 2000 up to 2006 or 2007, the number of passengers also increased to a substantial degree. There has been a decrease during the past couple of years.

The money was invested well at the time but I agree with the Deputy that the major failure was that the network did not change.

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