Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

In regard to the point raised by Senator Burke, if one goes back to the financing of the DART in the 1980s and 1990s, CIE was forced by various Governments to borrow and the Department of Transport through the Department of Finance helped with the interest payments. The enormous contrast between those days and today is that CIE got no capital moneys from the Government until 1997, although it got some from the EU in the early 1990s. The £317 million was expected to take the full weight of whatever capital developments that were undertaken, the principal one being the DART at that time. Thankfully, Government support to CIE and other public transport bodies is in the range of €400 million to €500 million. We look forward to seeing what the exact figure is in the Book of Estimates tomorrow.