Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

As I said on Committee Stage, the effect of the amendment would be the opposite of what the Deputy desires. The legislation contains protections for the network and I agree with the Deputy that it is extremely important that the concept of the network be protected as much as possible and it is not seen as a collection of individual routes. One of the effects of the amendment would be that consideration of applications would have to account of the impact of the proposed public bus services on all transport services subject to a PSO contract. I am sure the Deputy does not desire that every PSO contract would have to be considered across Dublin city for licence applications. That would make it impossible to make decisions. Every PSO would have to be considered whether the bus service would have an impact. If there is unmet demand in an area to which such a contract relates, it would be impossible to refuse applications for a licence. This could potentially undermine subvented services. That is why accepting the amendment could have the undesired effect from the Deputy's point of view of undermining the subvented services in an area. I ask the Deputy to withdraw the amendment for that reason.

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