Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Broughan quoted again the statistics on subsidies. He neglects to mention the capital subsidy that was available for the renewal of the fleet of Bus Éireann over many years which was significantly higher than he would like to acknowledge.

In the world in which we live now with the new EU directive and everything else, a public transport company must operate in a commercial environment. In the current financial situation it will not be easy to maintain services.

Deputy Broughan mentioned a number of services. On the Donegal one, for example, notwithstanding the difficulties he outlined for the individual concerned, the average load on that was less than 11. The average load on the Ballyvourney to Cork service he spoke about was less than nine. The average load on the Portumna service he mentioned was less than three passengers a day. I do not care what kind of a system he wants to put in place, but he cannot expect that a full-scale transport service can be run on these routes at the same frequency for an average of three passengers a day. It is not reasonable.

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