James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

Absolutely. The Chairman's first question was about the €29 million from the A5 Border to Derry project. That is part of a wider project to connect the north west. That goes from Clontibret in Monaghan across the Border right through Derry into Donegal and beyond. That is a very significant commitment by Government. It is aligned with the shared island project in terms of cross-Border funding. The price tag is much greater than €29 million. It is multiple of that, in fact. However, the €29 million that was allocated is not required in the current year. It will not be drawn down at this stage. It is being carried over and that will from part of separate Estimates for next year. Rather than having that sort of wither on the vine, it is being reallocated within public transport services.

As the Chairman mentioned, it is so important that we ensure the reliability and capacity of those buses. Indeed, one thing I will continue to progress, including today and with the NTA, is the need for capacity on all routes. The Chairman mentioned a bus passing by that is full. I have seen that in my constituency as well. More double-deckers were mentioned earlier, and more buses in general, not only in terms of the routes that are established but the people who are travelling on them. That is really important. Ultimately, the bus service must be flexible and responsive when there are demands. In my area, when Maynooth college used to start ever year, the service supplied it with a particular number of buses.

Within two weeks I would get calls from students or families as a local representative and I am sure other members do as well. I would ring the bus operator and they would pretty much say, "That is grand. We will tweak it next week". Then they try it out. Every year there are different demands and different patterns. Within a few weeks of starting, they would say they would add a bus or occasionally they would take a bus off or put it on at a different time, depending on demand. A lot of this is trial and error but it is important to be responsive, so where there is great demand we can increase capacity and where there is less demand we can reallocate it somewhere else. That is just good management.

There will always be constraints with the funding and that is why we are here today with the Supplementary Estimate to make sure we can get more funding where it is needed. For the fleet, we need to invest in capital expenditure to purchase the new carriages. The DART+ fleet is one particular project. Rail carriages and bus carriages are no different in that they need to be commissioned, built and then put into service. We have also talked about the driver and mechanic shortage. Those trades are now going on the critical skills list, which should assist in recruitment and retention going forward.