Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): We have in attendance Mr John McGrath, deputy secretary for transport and resources; Mr Gary Boyd, acting director of finance; and Mr Terry Deehan, head of financial planning and management. You are all very welcome. Thank you for coming to brief us this morning.

Earlier in the week, there was welcome news about an additional £3 million that has been allocated by the Executive to the Department for Infrastructure. Hopefully, that will help to go a little way towards some of the issues.

Mr John McGrath (Department for Infrastructure): A little way.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): It will be a little way. I am mindful of my words when I say that. Again, it is very welcome.

Obviously, John, you were with us a few weeks ago, and you gave us a very brief oversight of some of the challenges in the Department. The written briefing that you have presented gives more information about that and the difficulties that the Department has going forward. I am mindful of the fact that we have information on the spring Estimates and the Vote on Account, and then we are moving towards the Budget. On behalf of the Committee, I would welcome it if you couched some of your comments with regard to those processes as we move forward on them.

Mr McGrath: That is OK, Chair. First of all, I welcome the opportunity to share some of our grief with the Committee. A lot of our issues are widely known, so I propose to give an overview of them and then give as much time as possible for the Committee to raise questions. I appreciate that you would like a bit more explanation about the Budget process itself and the Estimates, so I will ask Gary to open up and cover that, if that is OK.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Yes. Thank you.

Mr Gary Boyd (Department for Infrastructure): Thanks, John. The purpose of next week's Budget Bill (Northern Ireland) 2020 is to provide legislative authority for the Executive's revised spending plans after January monitoring 2019-2020. It relates to the 2019-2020 year. The Main Estimates took place in Westminster in October, so January monitoring basically gives the authority to supersede those plans. The Bill also includes a Vote on Account to allow Departments to spend in the early months of 2021, but it is not a 2021 Budget: it focuses on giving authority for the 2019-2020 spend and a Vote on Account for early expenditure in 2021. That is really the process and purpose of it.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): John, do you want to make any further comment?

Mr McGrath: As I said, the Department's budgetary position has been well rehearsed, but I will give a bit of background. In our view, the severe budget constraints, as the Minister describes them, stem, in particular, from the 2015-16 budget settlement for DRD at the time, when the Department was left to absorb some £60 million of resource pressures. That resulted in a reduction in Translink's operating subsidy of, at that time, about £13 million; a reduction in the funding of Northern Ireland Water (NIW) from the level set by the regulator; a reduction in community transport; reductions in staffing spend in the Department and a significant exodus from the Department through the voluntary exit scheme (VES); some reductions in the road safety budget, and I know that you rehearsed that last week with some colleagues; and what can be described only as drastic cuts to the road maintenance budget, which was the last one left standing.

We have basically teetered along since then, because flat cash budget settlements have meant that there has been no scope to redress the damage that was done to those main budgets in 2015-16. We have managed — barely — by having some significant in-year additions over the four years, but, in some cases, that just got us back to providing a barely adequate service, particularly for road maintenance. Therefore, not only have we not been able to address those cuts, they have almost become institutionalised and the detrimental impact, particularly on the road network, has been compounded.

Where have we got to? We have continually failed to fund NI Water to the level prescribed by the regulator, which is deemed to be the right level, taking account of the efficiencies that the company would do. We have maintained the public transport network, which is an expansive network that does a lot of good across government and the public service, only through whittling down Translink's reserves. That has paid for the deficit. Those reserves are, however, finite, and we are almost at the end of that road. The company has an operating deficit now of about £20 million. That is exacerbated by the funding deficit on the concessionary fares scheme, which has now risen to about £8 million in the current year and, with the demographics, will almost certainly increase going forward.

Mr Hilditch: Sorry, I did not catch that. What scheme is that, John?

Mr McGrath: The concessionary fares scheme, David.

We continue to provide a poor skeleton — we have run out of euphemisms for the road maintenance service. The problems are widely known, so I will not rehearse them. The Minister's postbox is full of them, as, indeed, are Members' questions. Again, we are managing this year only through in-year additions — what we got in the January monitoring and then the latest supplement that you referred to, Chair — but we are nowhere near a proper service, and, worse than that, we are building up problems because we are simply not looking after the assets that we have. They are deteriorating in front of us. We are running community transport with £2 million less than we had four or five years ago, and there are real pressures there that I am sure members are familiar with. The road safety advertising budget is at a reduced level, but, as my colleague Lynda made clear last week, we do different work these days on social media and, therefore, are still running an effective service. Obviously, some more money would help.

In resource terms, we continue to be strapped. It is a major issue in the current Budget process for 2021. The Minister has registered those points in the Budget process and in dialogue with the Finance Minister last week.

Capital is to look after infrastructure. The infrastructure that we have is core to how this place lives, works and thrives. We have custodianship of major public assets; the road network alone is valued at £27 billion. There is a responsibility on government to discharge appropriate custodianship of those assets. We are not in a position to do so, and that was commented on, of late, by the Audit Office in its report about structural maintenance. We began this year with £470 million in capital. It is the biggest capital block in the Northern Ireland block, but it is nowhere near what we need. Based on evidence that we have from the Audit Office, the Barton report, and parallel work that we have done in terms of NI Water, the rail permanent way and public transport, we estimate that we need about £350 million to start with, just to look after those assets. Therefore, if we took a bottom-up approach, most of the money would go on that, before you got to anything else.

However, we have flagships. Major flagship projects, at the minute, are the A5 and the A6, and the transport hub is about to go on the ground. They have major demands. We have other major priorities coming along. Members may want to talk about things like York Street and those priorities. We have the whole issue of waste water infrastructure, which is more in the public eye, and there is a realisation that, if that is not addressed, it will be an inhibitor on social and economic growth. Again, we want to invest more in public transport. We want to get more people out of cars and to improve the public transport offer. The success of Glider demonstrated what you can do if you have the right technology and the right offer, so we need money to invest in that. We want to invest more in active travel. The Minister makes that a priority. She also wants to make climate change a priority. We could go a long way with low-emission bus fleets and issues like that, but they all cost.

We estimated in the Budget process, before the 'New Decade, New Approach' document came along, that we needed about £800 million next year to do what we needed to do, rising to over £1 billion in the next two years. That is the lion's share of the Northern Ireland capital block, as it stands. Then, when you look at a number of the aspirations or commitments in the 'New Decade, New Approach' document, you see that we would need an awful lot more funding, and it is difficult to see, at the minute, where that might come from. Clearly, there is the local Budget process, and there will be a national Budget. The expectation is that, in capital, there could be significant additions nationally, for which we would get the Barnett consequentials, and we would look forward to that, but, obviously, there is no clear line of sight on that at the minute. As things stand, it is not clear that the timetable for the UK Budget will remain as it was, with the change in chancellorship last week. So, it is pretty uncertain at the minute.

We do well on capital. We spend our capital; we get our projects done. We are spending about £2 million a week on the A6, at the minute. We get things done. Our needs are far more, at the minute, than the supply chain of resources.

That is all I propose to say at the minute, Chair.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Thank you very much. You have obviously painted a very grim picture for us, and it has not cheered us up on a wet Wednesday morning. Since our last meeting, what discussions have you and the Minister had with the Finance Minister? He is a previous Regional Development Minister who is mindful of the issues that you have highlighted, because none of that is new.

Mr McGrath: We gave our returns to the Department of Finance even before Christmas. That is the process and that is where we sketched out our capital and resource needs and the pressures, some of which we have had to deal with since 2015-16 and which are north of £60 million and rising over the three years. Last week, the Minister had a bilateral meeting with the Finance Minister, at which she set out her concerns and what she saw as her needs. That is where we are in the Budget process.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Throughout your presentation, you mentioned the basic needs of the Department and then, obviously, the aspirations that have come to light over the last couple of years, particularly those around climate change and so on, which are foremost in people's minds. You have a challenge in the Department with regard to staff and recently went through a period of redundancy. You reduced manpower and skills. Has that had an impact on the delivery of some of what you want to do?

Mr McGrath: Yes. We were in straitened financial circumstances, so we were fairly aggressive in the voluntary exit scheme. We allowed a lot of staff to go so that we could make savings. That meant that, almost overnight, there was a lot of knowledge lost, particularly on the roads side.

The model that my roads colleagues operate on is different now from what they had years ago. For example, in previous years, we could get extra money for structural maintenance, even now, and get it spent, because we had the means to get it spent. As we are running a leaner operation, we could not do that this late, and therefore the timetable has switched forward. It has had an impact.

We are a very lean Department. We joke about it a bit, but we do not have much corporate overhead. We have stripped down a lot of things. From 2015-16 on, we tried to find any spare pennies, and we have never really come out of that. It is a good challenge, and it makes you realise what you need to spend funding on, but we are very tight for funding, particularly for staffing. Yet, for example, we are dealing with Brexit, and we have a lot of Brexit-related work because of the issues around the freight industry and driver licensing. We are managing that, because a lot of staff are doubling up between their day jobs and that. We are under pressure.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): You do not have any fat in the system.

Mr McGrath: No. We have no fat, and I can genuinely say that. I used to joke that our previous permanent secretary would go round and hold people up by their ankles and shake them to see whether there was any money there. Occasionally there was, but it is not there any more.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): There is nothing down the back of the sofa.

Mr Beggs: Thanks for the detailed budget briefing. It is not good reading. It does not bode well for the short term and even less so for the long term.

On capital, you have highlighted that there are 100 areas where investment is needed for Northern Ireland Water to enable planning restrictions to be lifted. There are problems with the road maintenance budget and the need to continue to invest in public transport. That is the capital side; the physical new buys. Actually, what gives me greatest concern is on the resource side; your day-to-day running costs. I take it that employing staff is the main part of the expenditure. In particular, the report highlights that Northern Ireland Water has a shortfall in its resource of £7 million and Translink has one of £29 million. The wording used about Translink ought to give everybody concern:

That is very concerning.

Given that both organisations are publicly owned companies, they must follow company law, and, if they were to get to the stage of insolvency, they will close. What are the options for those organisations in the short term, if additional money is not provided? What back plan do they have so that they do not become insolvent? We are talking about a very serious situation if we were to shut down Translink and it were to go bankrupt.

Mr McGrath: First, those are two very well managed professional organisations in the public sector. None of the issues are about the management of the companies; it is about their funding. It is the Department and the Government's issue.

My colleagues who are coming along later can talk about NI Water in more detail. We have not funded NI Water to the level prescribed by the regulator since the PC15 period started: at no stage. In earlier years, NI Water managed because inflation and the weather were benign, and it was more efficient than the regulator expected it to be. It is not at same level of there being an insolvency issue at the minute. There is an issue of it being funded adequately to do what it is doing.

Translink is a different matter. First, it is an issue of funding. It is very clear that it is not an issue of management of finances or anything. We took money away in 2015-16, and it was the decision of the then Minister to cover a £60 million gap. There were difficult issues there with striking a balance between reducing the funding for NI Water and reducing the funding to Translink. In the end, the road maintenance budget took the biggest hit. That reduction in funding to Translink has grown to 2020, as we have given it no funding for inflation or pay awards or anything.

We have managed and Translink has managed to maintain the network and to make improvements to it by drawing on its reserves. So, when it had a loss of £15 million in one of the earlier years, that was paid out of the reserves, because, as a company, it had to come from somewhere. We are running out of that option. If the numbers remain the same, Translink faces going in to 2020-21 with a deficit of about £28 million. Its level of working capital is less than that recommended for a business of that size that goes through that amount of cash to pay wages and buy fuel. There would be challenges from the going concern test that the auditor would apply.

As you rightly said, directors have particular responsibilities. They must ensure that they can trade solvently. Therefore, if events moved outside our control because of directors' responsibility, company law etc, you could face a situation where the company, to trade, has to make drastic action. I doubt that there are the savings there to balance the books and run any sort of network. As you rightly picked up, the public transport network is the issue.

Mr Beggs: I assume that you have gone through some sort of scenario planning or options that will be available to Translink. Are we talking about closing down lesser used town services, shutting down rural bus services or shutting down parts of railways? What are the options that will remain?

Mr McGrath: There are two elements. First of all, for the concessionary fares, we refund Translink. Demand for that is approaching £50 million, and our budget is £40-odd million. It is entirely inappropriate that Translink is left with a £10-million hole because the demand for a publicly funded scheme is exceeding the budget. There are, therefore, issues around whether we can afford to do that. Then, Translink has its own operating deficit of £20 million. Some work that we have done suggests that making that sort of saving would decimate the public transport network.

Mr Beggs: What would happen?

Mr McGrath: To put it the other way around: you might only be able to keep running the things that wash their face, and that is very little. Any successful public transport network is publicly subsidised — for example, Transport for London — so, if you ended up running only what was profitable, you would be talking about parts of the Metro services and some of the Goldline routes.

It is not in a scenario anywhere, but another option would be to close down the railway. There is no document with that option in it; all I am saying is that, because of the scale, it is not a case of, as the Chair referred to, "Tighten your belt a bit, and it'll be all right". The scale of it means that, in our view, the continued viability of the public transport network is in jeopardy.

Mr Beggs: Who would take the decisions on which services to cut? Translink or the Department?

Mr McGrath: If we got to that point, it would have to be agreed by the Minister. It will not be things at the margins. You are talking about hacking at the bone and even then it might not be enough. If you cut services, you have issues about staffing and redundancies, so you end up generating a big bill; you have to pay a lot of money to downsize.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): What timescales are we talking about in having to look at that doomsday scenario?

Mr McGrath: Those timescales are upon us; it is February, and the new financial year starts in April.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): This is imminent.

Mr McGrath: To be clear: we have been consistently making this point over the past few years, not only within government but in public. The budget briefing document that went out a couple of years ago around Christmas referred to the issues. I have referred to this as kicking the can down the road, and we did kick it a bit, because, with some in-year additions, we bought another year. However, we do not have that any more. We have made the point; the Minister made the point when she was here; she has made the point to the Finance Minister, and she made it at the Executive meeting last week. This is a serious issue.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): We recognise that. We have heard that. This is not news to us, and I do not think that it is news to anyone.

Mr McGrath: I appreciate that, Chair. I just feel that people sometimes think we will manage through in-year money. This organisation needs proper funding for the public transport network that we benefit from. We want more people on public transport, but the irony is that expanding public transport means putting in more subsidy. The Glider is the most successful thing that has been done here. It is an absolute star. We had people over from the Department for Transport looking at it last week. It is costing us money. The patronage has gone up whenever the bill has gone up. You do not get a lot of public transport addition, particularly when you have a very generous concessionary fares scheme, without public subsidy.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): You had discussions with the Finance Minister about this and it was raised in January monitoring, but no funding came as a consequence of that. What response are you getting from the Department of Finance?

Mr McGrath: As I said, with the Budget process now, rightly, in the hands of Ministers, bilaterals are going on between the Finance Minister and other Ministers. I know that there was a discussion at the Executive. It is fair to say that the Finance Minister has issues about the timing of the Budget here and whether it is a normal timescale or is delayed to take account of what happens in the UK Budget. That is complicated by what has happened. I do not have any insight on what the numbers might look like. It is above my pay grade at the moment.

Mr Hilditch: You are very welcome, John. Unfortunately, you have brought the rain clouds inside today. There is no good news at all, it seems.

Mr McGrath: We do have good news. We do good things, such as the Glider and the schemes that we do. It is just that, when you do not have enough money to do them, it is very difficult. A lot of my colleagues, particularly the professional engineers in Roads Service, want to do a good job but feel very bad when they cannot do it. It is almost personal for them.

Mr Hilditch: I understand that. You mentioned the loss of knowledge from the Department, particularly around the road situation. Does that result in having to engage consultants on schemes when that would normally come from a departmental source?

Mr McGrath: We engage consultants on schemes anyway to do a lot of design.

Mr Hilditch: As a replacement for those who have gone?

Mr McGrath: Not necessarily. We have our in-house consultancy, both to keep expertise inside and to enable us to be an intelligent customer of consultants. We may well have had to do more. In the same way, we do a lot of work internally directly and, in some cases now, particularly with a lot of the street-lighting works, our own team is doing it because we do not have the funds to employ contractors. It is a slimmed-down organisation compared with what it was a few years ago. Sometimes that is good, but we lost a lot of knowledge across the Department, because, in the middle of the VES, you were suddenly discovering, every Friday, that a bunch of people you knew and had worked with had just disappeared.

Mr Hilditch: If you are haemorrhaging that experience at that end, you are probably unable to bring people in at the bottom end to work up? That is potentially not possible.

Mr McGrath: My roads colleagues will have a better handle on that. I think that Conor is coming in a week or two to give you a handle. We did not have difficulties recruiting, but we lost a lot of people — some people were the two or three people who knew everything about a certain aspect, whether it was street lighting or something, and it is difficult to replace that knowledge and skill. Our age profile across the Department, as it is across the Civil Service, is to the right-hand side of the curve, and a lot of people went a bit earlier because of VES, so we do not have the distribution that you might have in a normal workforce. We have a lot of people, not just professionals but generalist staff, who are aged 55-plus. I have a group of 300 people; I do not think that I have anyone under the age of 25 in it. That is remarkable.

Mr Hilditch: That is a bit concerning.

On capital, one of the buzzwords out there is in relation to city deals. Is the Department a viable partner in the city deals moving forward, or is there not enough information yet?

Mr McGrath: We are a significant player in the Belfast city region deal, where, subject to the approval of the Executive, we will sponsor, and, hence, pay for, the southern relief road, Glider 2, and the Lagan bridge. We are active in the work on the Derry city deal, but I am not sure that there will be that many DFI projects in it, although my perm sec is the lead government official on the Derry city deal in general. We regard them as important schemes, and we do a lot of work on them. However, as I said, you would have to add the city deal to the list things to fund; those will come off the top before you start.

Mr Hilditch: The other capital headings are inescapables, pre-committed and high-priority schemes. Will you give us a flavour of the difference in those lines? To the layperson, it all looks very similar.

Mr McGrath: We are great at producing tables. [Laughter.]

The way that we do our capital is, "What are the absolutes?". We have to fund the flagship projects, so they come off the top. If the city deals are approved by the Executive — all the work to date was subject to the Executive — they will be the next call at the top. The regulator's determination on what NI Water should get is, essentially, inescapable because it has the force of the regulator.

We have rail-safety critical work that needs to be done. Although we are very concerned about the state of the road network, we have, of late, asked questions about the fabric of the permanent way. As Chris Conway would say, you cannot see a pothole in a railway line, but if something goes wrong, there is no truck or anything on that. We are buying new carriages for the rail network. That contract is in place; it was let about a year or more ago, so that is a contractual commitment. We have buses in procurement; orders were placed last year. Indeed, that is continuous. It goes down. We need to find money for Waterways Ireland. We are continuing the funding of the design phase of York Street.

There is a range of pieces like that. Some of our strategic road improvement (SRI) schemes are progressing but have not been given the formal go-ahead to go live. In a sense, they almost require money to keep turning over. We will discuss with the Minister whether we can afford to do all of those. We have a whole range of stuff.

You then get in to pre-committed structural maintenance; more money for buses; what we are going to spend on cycling and greenways; some funding for the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA); the light-emitting diode (LED) programme on street lights; and the Belfast tidal project. When you have the amount of infrastructure that we have, you get an awful lot of stuff that is just for minding it. The roads network is worth £27 billion; the rail network is worth about £3 billion. We need to maintain our bus fleet. The housekeeping bill is sizeable if you actually put money into housekeeping, but the public sector in general is not good at looking after its assets. It is a lot.

The real challenge for us and the Minister has been, is, and, I suspect, will continue to be that if you do the top-down stuff, what do you have left to look after your assets? If you do it bottom-up, do you have enough to do the flagships? I suspect that some of you will have written to the Minister asking about progress on the Cookstown bypass, the Ballynahinch bypass, the Enniskillen bypass, or the new train station in Moira. I know them all because I read them every day, but you just think, "Unless there is a huge supplement from the UK budget for capital, we cannot do all those things". Cannot.

Mr Hilditch: Finally, my old hobby horse of road safety; I have raised it before at numerous meetings. The budget, I think, has been cut from £1 million to £700,000; it had been about £2 million or £3 million. At one stage, it was a wee bit higher than that again. Nine out of 10 accidents in Northern Ireland are due to human error.

Mr McGrath: Yes; driver behaviour.

Mr Hilditch: Bad behaviour. It is important that we try to sustain road safety campaigns as best we can.

Mr McGrath: Indeed, and Linda did a good job of explaining that it is not just about the money: it is how we spend the money. We do a lot more on social media for things like this. We are very inventive. You are right: the main issue is driver behaviour. You said that the road-safety strategy is at an end, and it is one of the Minister's issues to shape a new one. We have to see what different approach we can take to that: will it be the traditional approach to road safety? We will try to be a bit more inventive, as it is critical.

Mr Hilditch: There are new ways to reach out to the public.

Mr McGrath: I shared with the Minister the fact that last year in Norway no child died on the roads whatsoever. In Oslo, only one person died, and that was by their own devices. Over the years, they have moved towards taking cars out of city centres, which is a good thing when looking at climate change. However, taking cars out of city centres reduces the scope for road-traffic accidents (RTAs). We might be taking a much more holistic look at road safety.

Of course, there are differences between the urban setting and the rural setting, and there are a lot of issues about driver behaviour in rural areas. We will be taking a more joined-up approach in the Department. Linda talked last week about education, engineering, and enforcement, but there is a whole issue about planning and the way these places work and whether they are made to be safe. As I said, if there are fewer cars about, it will automatically give you some road-safety potential.

Mr Hilditch: Thank you. The other questions have been answered.

Ms Anderson: Thank you, John. It was quite a depressing picture. I do not envy you your task of trying to manage everything that you are trying to do, particularly in the context of the budgetary cuts to the block grant that have gone on for years, and the complications of Brexit that you referred to. I am conscious that public services are being sliced and diced and squeezed. When you compare that to an environment here in the North where, over the same period, we have a growing number of millionaires. We probably do need to ensure that public money is spent in a way that delivers for people. Forgive me, I have a number of questions; this is the first opportunity I have had to engage with you and your officials.

I have written to the Minister about concessionary fares. I say this in the context of the outline Programme for Government that clearly stated that resources would be allocated based on objective need, the need to balance the regional economy and regional inequalities. I want to talk about concessionary fares in the context of the north-west and, for example, my home town of Derry, but it may not be applicable only there.
Those who avail of concessionary fares cannot get transport from Derry to the International Airport or to the City Airport, although you can get them from anywhere else in the North. Airporter used to provide the service, but they do not have access to the automatic scanning hardware that is used by Translink, and that needs to be looked at if we are to tackle regional inequalities. A city with a population like that of Derry needs that access. I am saying this in the context of what you said about budgetary constraints.

In the information that we received I read about an issue that is very alarming for the people of Derry. It has been an ongoing issue for the Executive and the Assembly for many years. I refer to a time in 2014, six years ago, when there was a debate in the Chamber about the scandal that we knew had taken place at the Mobuoy dump. The scandal seems to be growing, and our role is to scrutinise the Department and others who may be responsible for it.

I am conscious that there may be areas — and, Chair, I would be very careful not to go into them — that may be subject to judicial or legal challenge.

In 2017, the Planning Appeals Commission upheld the enforcement order from the Department — now the Department for Infrastructure — to remove the toxic material. I am talking about the potential impact of pollution on the River Faughan and contamination of the drinking water of the people of Derry. Recently, the Planning Appeals Commission upheld the enforcement order again and refused to accept an appeal that was taken forward.

Now — to refer to an issue that we talked about earlier: the need for a joined-up approach — your Department and your Minister, probably even in the context of one of her priorities, on climate change, and the Department of Justice have been dealing with the situation for years. There is potential contamination of the River Faughan and drinking water, and we have the Department with an enforcement order. One of the things that were said at the time was, "Well, we need Ministers in place in order to take it forward". Now, we have those Ministers. One Minister is saying one thing about planning, and another is saying something else. That is where there are difficulties. Last night, there was a meeting about it in the city.

I am also concerned, as I am sure other members are, about the waste-water programme. Again, in the context of the north-west, it was clear, when we looked at the document — everyone will know how 'New Decade, New Approach' was released and how parties had to decide whether they would go forward based on how it was launched — that it talks about tackling regional disparities and inequalities. However, with regard to a waste-water programme, it refers to a scheme for Belfast, not the north-west. I am conscious that whether it is roads or, particularly, housing that need to be built around the north-west and the city of Derry, there are problems with waste water. It is a dire situation.

Finally, does the Minister intend to engage with the Irish Government, when one is established, of course — and who knows the role that we would be able to play in that — on the A5? That document referred to £75 million coming from the Irish Government, as opposed to its original commitment of £400 million. Seventy-five million pounds will not cut it; it will not be enough. Can we get an update? If not, maybe you could return to that or I could speak to someone in the Department about it.

Mr McGrath: I am not sighted on the planning issue at all. I will not comment on it, but I will take it back to colleagues who are coming up afterwards.

On concessionary fares, the issue of the Airporter's accessing that scheme — or its leaving the scheme and, perhaps, returning to it — is under discussion because there are audit issues. Certainly, when a new ticketing system is fully in place for Translink in a year or so, it will be much easier for others to access it.

On your point about waste water — again, colleagues are coming up afterwards — it is not exclusively a Belfast

, but the biggest concentration is in Belfast. There are a number of areas across Northern Ireland where development is being inhibited by the waste-water infrastructure. It is not a Belfast-only issue, but the priority at the start may well need to be Belfast. Simon and Linda are coming after me this morning, and they are better placed to give details.

On the latter point, the Minister has said that North/South connectivity is one of her personal priorities. I expect that when clarity emerges with regard to who the Irish Government are and, in, particular, who the transport Minister is, she will want early dialogue on the A5 and, indeed, other issues. The A5 is a very important scheme; it is also a very, very expensive scheme. I am not saying that it will not happen, but, even with that contribution, it will be a big swallow. You are talking about the guts of £1 billion. That has nothing to do with merit —.

Ms Anderson: If you consider the amount that it would open up —.

Mr McGrath: That has nothing to do with the merits of it. That is why —.

Ms Anderson: That could be the case with regard to anything, to be honest with you. People in the north-west have heard arguments, concerns and information like that being put on the table about projects that are required. This is about tackling regional inequalities.

Mr McGrath: I know. I am not commenting on it, because —.

Ms Anderson: I know that you are supportive of that. I just want to make the point that you could apply that to anything that the Department needs to take forward. With regards to the priority for investment in Belfast, with, say, the waste-water infrastructure, of course, that is required, but it is not about focusing solely on Belfast and ignoring the rest. The same pressures are on the same populations, smaller though they are, in Derry and the north-west as they are in Belfast.

Mr McGrath: I would not argue with that in the slightest.

Ms Anderson: Thank you.

Mr McGrath: The Minister has made the point that regional imbalance is one of her priorities, and we actively look at that. I would like to think that a lot of the work that we do has a regional focus. There are inherited problems, and connectivity for the north-west is an issue.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): The same point could be made for all of us, in various constituencies across Northern Ireland.

Mr Boylan: John, thank you very much for the presentation. I do not think that you made anybody's Christmas list after reporting that. We will not hold it personally against you.

We received the report today. We will not solve all the problems within an hour, a 15-minute briefing, and questions from members, although there have been some good questions. From an elected rep's point of view, it is how it will impact individuals. It is important to somebody who is getting gritting done while we are sitting here talking about budgets and moneys. I realise that, for most of us, the roads issue makes up maybe about 50% of the complaints that we get in our offices, and I respect that.

I want to go back to an interesting point that you made. You said that you lost capacity — people — in the Department through the scheme. If you had the money in the morning, would you be able to address that?

Mr McGrath: It would depend on what we wanted to do. We lost capacity, but we also lost spending power. If somebody wanted us to rack up our spending power, whether in roads maintenance or capital schemes, we might need more people, but we have to cut our coat according to our cloth. There would be no point in increasing our staffing on the roads side if we did not have the money to spend on the front line, as you put it, and make a difference to how people go about their lives. It is a balance, and that is why we took an aggressive approach at the time to say that we needed to make staff savings to make a contribution to the overall £60 million hole that we were facing. It was not a comfortable decision.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that.

Mr McGrath: Many people were quite happy to go; many of them might have been retiring a year or two later anyway. However, we reduced our capability and our capacity.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that. I want to move on to some specific questions, but there is a broader discussion to be had. Members could ask a number of questions, and I am just trying to stick to the briefing that you have given. As I said, we will not solve it all today, and we are mindful of the issues, especially rural roads and maintenance. I have championed that for a long time.

You received £3 million to deal with winter conditions. Can you expand on that a wee bit? What is your intention for that money, or can you give us any answers —?

Mr McGrath: We got some money in the January monitoring round, including £1·8 million for street lighting. There was then a sort of January monitoring round-plus announced by the Finance Minister on Monday that, surprisingly, gave us another £3 million. The Minister is deciding on the distribution of all the January monitoring round money in detail, but, because we did not have enough money at the start of the year to provide the winter service, we are still spending significant sums, given the conditions, and we need to make sure that we have enough money to see us through until the end of the year. That is a moveable feast; street lighting and potholes are also issues. The Minister will decide the detail in a matter of days, because we need to get the money out. That is the point. She is testing where she wants to [Inaudible.]

They are not huge amounts of money, but they can make a difference in local areas very quickly.

Mr Boylan: I want to touch on community transport. We have had a broad discussion about motor vehicle (MV) permits and now the D1s. On the overall budget and impact, some people have grandfathering rights while others do not. As part of a broader discussion about those things, has any consideration been given to making changes that could go back to the Minister?

It can be quite expensive to go through the D1 process. It impacts on the community and voluntary sector and on the programmes that organisations are trying to roll out.

Mr McGrath: At the minute, there is no intention of doing that, because the position that we took was based on an up-to-date interpretation of the law, and the law has not changed. Our advice on the matter is that there is very little scope to change anything. The issue of the impact on schools and on teachers driving buses is a very difficult one, but, at the heart of it, is a fundamental issue about safety: who is driving buses with people on them? Subject to the view of the Minister, I doubt that we will be changing position, because the law has not changed.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that. I know that in Scotland and Wales there are grandfather rights. I appreciate the road safety element, but I am coming from the community point of view. There was an issue covered on the radio this morning where community groups have stopped putting on events, such as road races and, in my area, road bowls. I do not think that any of the things that we intend to do are meant to impact on communities, and I asked the question in that context. Have you no intention of going back to the Minister on that?

Mr McGrath: At the minute, I see no reason to change the lawyers' interpretation of the law. Nothing else has changed. If something changed, obviously we would go to the Minister on the issue.

Mr Boylan: You say that it would cost £48 million to rebuild five DVA test centres. Can you go through some of the stuff on test centres? Is the money there to address the lifts issue, or will that be taken out of the reserves? Can you expand on that?

Mr McGrath: I am not over all the detail on the DVA, because it is so current and colleagues are dealing with it. I do not think that we will have pinned down the precise funding implication and the extent to which the DVA reserves can recover some of these things. Obviously, if they do, it will be at the cost of something else. Whatever the reserves are, they are a fixed amount. This is a fluid issue, Cathal, and I am not well sighted on the detail.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that. I ask in the context of the overall budget.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Mr Boylan, could you speak into the mic?

Mr Boylan: Sorry, Chair. Just the DVA stuff. It is not even the lifts issue. Money has been set aside for new test centres. You mentioned the impact on climate, the issue being that the new centres will have to be set up for the new emissions tests. It is just that you have no detail on those issues at the minute. Maybe you or somebody else could come back to us.

Mr McGrath: Sure. If you ask us, somebody can come to talk about it.

Mr Boylan: That is the new DVA centres, the emissions tests and, obviously, the lifts issue.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): We will request a further update on the DVA.

Mr Boylan: There is money set aside for new centres. I just want an update on that.

Ms Kimmins: Thanks, John, for your presentation. A lot of the points have been covered, but there are a couple of things I want to ask from the briefing.

My colleague mentioned community transport. I come from the perspective of having worked in older people's services for a long time, and one of the key issues in community transport is transporting people between their home and hospitals or nursing homes. However, previously where we might have been able to access community transport, the figures show a 20% reduction in the budget. In my experience of the past few years, with, for example, an older person who is bed-bound and who cannot even use a wheelchair, there would have been a suggestion to get them a wheelchair taxi where their family could not provide transport. However, essentially, they would need an ambulance-type form of transport.

Is there any scope for working with the Department of Health on that to look at funding? At times, we had to access ambulances, but it is not always guaranteed that one is available. I know that this issue is very specific to a certain area, but it is a very important one because we have an ageing population and there are already huge strains on how we address the needs of older people.

There are huge pressures on families and on the community sector in that regard. Is there scope for looking at working with the Department of Health for help with the funding of those services so that we are not putting constraints on the Ambulance Service and so that community transport, for instance, is available when people do not have access to the transport that they need, from hospital to home or a nursing home? A lot of people do not have family and are completely reliant on public services for help.

There is also a huge dignity aspect in how people are transported. I could give loads of examples, but I have one in mind: a lady, who was a case of mine, was sent home from hospital, on her own, at 3.00 in the morning in a taxi. That is not acceptable. I know that it is not necessarily your remit, but community transport falls within this Department. It is something that Members can look at as well, but can it be explored, if it has not been already?

The correlation between collisions and budget expenditure on road safety is interesting. You noted 2012, when there was substantial expenditure on road-safety advertising. Is there any evidence on the correlation between budget expenditure, road-safety advertising and the number of fatalities? You said that it was at an all-time low when the budget on road-safety advertising was at a high. Will you open that up? Is there other evidence on that? I appreciate the importance of it, and I think it is effective in most cases.

Mr McGrath: There is some evidence of a correlation between advertising, the scale of it and fatalities, as we said earlier. Driver behaviour contributes most.

Ms Kimmins: Education is important.

Mr McGrath: It is important. We are constantly looking at the effectiveness of advertising. We have shifted more into social media, because that is what people use these days, particularly younger drivers. We had to do a budget cut a number of years ago, and we have not been able to supplement it since. If there is room to manoeuvre, I am sure that it will be in the Minister's list of priorities, but we cannot do that until we see the colour of the money.

However, we have a very good team. Last week, you saw the people who were here; they are very inventive and do a lot of work and are passionate about what they do. A lot of the advertising that was done over the years on road safety was groundbreaking. Admittedly, there were some trenchant advertisements; I still close my eyes when some of them come up. We do our best. Successive Ministers have always taken the view that they are the road-safety Minister as well as the transport and infrastructure Minister. I know that my current Minister is no less of that view.

The point is constantly made by operators and by organisations such as Age NI that a lot of people with health conditions avail of community transport. That is true. Whether it gets us to the point at which we will get some of the Health budget is a different matter, because, in some cases, the Health budget is hard-pressed and community transport is a good backup because it saves health trusts money. I am not being critical, but I know that the Minister may want to have some sort of dialogue with Minister Swann on the issue.

Community transport provides a valuable role. It is something that the Minister will want to look at, but, as I said, we had to take money out of it a number of years ago, and we have not been able to put any back in. I know that a couple of partnerships struggle to maintain a decent service. We had to provide some in-year money last year. I want to take up with the Minister suggestions on how to go forward on the issue, but, again, the headroom to do so may not exist.

Ms Kimmins: It is something that we as members should look at. Many of the issues are cross-cutting, and it is important that everybody plays their part.

My last point, John, relates to the section on walking and cycling. The New Decade, New Approach deal mentions the Sligo/Enniskillen greenway, which has a budget of £11 million. I am aware that the previous Minister, my colleague Chris Hazzard, launched a comprehensive greenway strategy that sought to create 1,000 kilometres of greenway over a 25-year period. An excellent greenway in my Newry and Armagh constituency provides a link to Carlingford/Omeath that has been hugely successful. Has the current Minister identified any other greenway projects and active travel routes that she is willing to fund or consider?

Mr McGrath: The Minister has not got to that point of detail. She clearly supports it. She has not got to the fine grain yet and is being careful not to say, "I want that to happen as opposed to that". There are so many pressures at the minute, so she is being very careful not to single anything out until she knows that she can afford it. She is quite committed to greenways, active travel and improving people's lives in general, which those clearly do.

Ms Kimmins: Thank you. Your brief mentions the need for "good quality safe cycle routes". That is obviously true, and it also takes people away from using their cars and things like that, so there is a huge positive impact right across the board. It only mentions plans around Belfast. Are there any plans to develop more separated cycle routes in other urban areas such as Derry and Armagh?

Mr McGrath: There are some thoughts about it. The pattern has been that we looked to local government to take the lead on some cycle routes outside Belfast. The Minister will want a fresh impetus to it. The traditional hierarchy, perhaps, was that the car came top, the pedestrian came last, and the cyclist was somewhere in the middle. We may be taking the view that that is the wrong way round. It is about promoting walking as much as cycling. It is the way places work. It is taking cars out of city centres.

We have done work in Belfast with the Department for Communities and the city council about what the city centre should look like in the future and how it should work. A lot of that is conjecturing that you have more pedestrian areas, fewer cars and more people walking about. The Minister is as interested in the place-making agenda, and, therefore, how walking, cycling and reducing car dependency and emission levels can contribute to that. It is about quality issues as much as hardware.

Mr Muir: It is probably fair to describe a lot of the Budget briefing as rather grim.

Mr McGrath: If it were me, I might say "rather" as opposed to just "grim".

Mr Muir: OK. Is it fair to describe this as a funding crisis?

Mr McGrath: We talked about some areas that are reaching crisis levels. We are trying to be straightforward and balanced — we are civil servants; we are good at this — about describing those issues, but I am sure that you are familiar with the issue that Mr Beggs teased out about Translink, which is reaching a critical point. On a risk register, it is red, and it is throbbing red.

Mr Muir: You outlined that this has been developing over a period. What contingencies have been built in to deal with that if it has been developing over a period?

Mr McGrath: There is not a huge amount of contingencies, Andrew, because of the scale of the deficit. Let us be clear: we run a fairly expansive public transport network — I think that you know all this — compared with elsewhere on these islands. We still run a good service in rural areas. It is important for people's lives and connectivity. People can get to hospital appointments, go to work, job interviews and college. If the public transport network fell away, particularly in rural areas, it would impact on the quality of life of lots of people. It is not just a DFI issue. If the network went, for example, the whole school transport arrangements would be in jeopardy because the Ulsterbus fleet does a lot of work moving kids around in the mornings and afternoons.

Mr Muir: Is the deadline for a resolution around April?

Mr McGrath: As I said, if Translink is faced with going into a new financial year projecting a deficit of about £29 million, that brings issues to the fore: our auditors' view, as Mr Beggs said, the directors' responsibilities, company law, trading insolvently and reputational damage. You could face issues of supplier confidence.

Mr Muir: That is a matter of weeks, really.

Mr McGrath: In our view, it needs some resolution or certitude.

Mr Muir: You talked about the concessionary fare scheme. Is part of that in danger as well?

Mr McGrath: I cannot comment on whether it is in danger. The concessionary fare scheme here is the most generous in these islands. It is more generous than anywhere else in the UK or in the South. The basic demographics are that more of the population are elderly and living longer, so it does not take a mathematical genius to work out that the expenditure on it will continue to increase. If the budget does not keep up with that, you end up with a gap. What is done about that will be a matter for the Ministers, because, again, the concessionary fare scheme makes a huge contribution to building social capital across this place.

In terms of numbers and people getting out, a lot of the anecdotes about the Glider service are about how groups of elderly people are crossing from one bit of Belfast to another, which they had never been in before: most of those people are concessionary fares. That contributes much to the fabric of life here, so we have to be careful about making decisions about it. On the other hand, you get free transport once you pass 60, so a lot of people are travelling to and from work for free.

Mr Muir: There are two ways to construe this. One is the funding crisis, which you outlined. The other aspect is that, the Monday before last, in the Assembly, we declared a climate emergency. The whole focus is on how we address climate change, and a key element of that is investment in public transport. What work is being done within government to make the case for investment in public transport? Investing much more in public transport should be viewed as a positive thing if we are to address the climate emergency.

Mr McGrath: We do. In the Programme for Government, we have an objective to increase the number of people who use public transport. I am the senior responsible officer (SRO) for that one. You then overlay that with the climate change agenda and getting people out of cars, reducing emission levels and congestion levels. It is almost blindingly obvious. We still have a society that is wedded to the car. We are making progress but, with many climate change issues, you reach a tipping point where it suddenly gets a bit easier to persuade people. A couple of years ago, there was an issue about plastic, but now everyone is fanatical about not using plastic straws. We have mounted the arguments and a whole case about public transport, but you need investment. Glider is a good example. It is behavioural change: a rational argument telling people that they ought not to drive is not enough; you need something to trigger the change. The Glider excites people, and people, including tourists, go on it for the experience.

Mr Muir: Has the case for investment been adequately been made, given that we are in this financial situation?

Mr McGrath: We have argued long and hard about investing in public transport, and we do that as much as we can. Equally, when we or the Minister are looking at capital, we ask whether it is water infrastructure or more roads, buses or carriages that we need. All those are important, and sometimes the public transport investment has not been at the top of that. Phase 2 of Glider, if it goes ahead as part of the Belfast region city deal, will be important. When we started Glider, we faced a lot of issues about bus lanes and queues, and we said that it would be nice when we got to the stage where the only complaints were from people who wanted Glider where they lived. We made the point for investment and will continue to do so. Translink makes that point eloquently and has a set of proposals for a bus replacement strategy based on low emissions. We had the launch of a hydrogen bus a few years ago.

Sometimes, you can have a credible and solid case, but there just is not enough money. That is what we have. It is not about, "Is this good value for money", whether it is investments or across the piece. Instead, it is, "There is a limited amount of money, so what gets you to the top?" in the Minister's or Executive's judgement.

Mr Muir: I understand that, but we have a funding crisis for Translink and the public transport network in Northern Ireland is in a state of collapse. There is a need to make the case for that investment in public transport, so we are not sitting here weeks away in the same situation.

Mr McGrath: The investment that we are talking about is money to keep the network going. I take your point that you would then want to improve the offer. We want to improve the kit. We want to change to low-emission buses. We want better rail because we do not have enough space on the trains for the numbers that we have. However, we need to keep the basic fabric going to enable us to put in further strategic investments.

Mr Muir: I declare as a former councillor on Ards and North Down Borough Council. I understand that a lot of councils have progressed greenway schemes and are ready to apply for funding. Is the idea to secure that funding for next year so that they can apply for it? That would be match funding that would enable these schemes to be brought forward.

Mr McGrath: We had the possibility of a grant scheme, and people worked up feasibility studies. Whether the Minister wants to revive that scheme or do something different is still up in the air. As I say, not knowing the colour of our money means that the Minister is in no position to start saying, "I will do this and I will do that". She has been very prudent in not jumping the gun on any of these things.

Mr Muir: Lastly, MOT centres, which were raised by Cathal Boylan: has any consideration been given to changing the fees charged for MOTs? I understand that those have remained static for the last number of years.

Mr McGrath: I am not sighted on that one, Andrew. There is a lot going on in the DVA, which my colleague Julie Thompson is covering and with which the Minister is heavily occupied. I cannot give you an answer on that one today.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Before we call Mrs Kelly for the last question, I want to turn to the fact that the commentary on the Translink directors' responsibility concerns me a little. If you go back to 2015, Translink had reserves of £56·7 million. I know that, at that stage, the Department was tightening its belt. Some would say that the Department looked quite jealously on the fact that Translink had those reserves and that the Department, by not upholding its end of the agreement with Translink, was allowing Translink to contribute to the overall Department's pot. While it has become very evident to us over the last couple of years that Translink is in this position, that position is really the Department's fault as opposed to that of Translink's directors. I am a wee bit concerned that, if we were in a position where we are talking about insolvency and so on, there is a responsibility on the directors. They are in this position through no fault of their own.

Mr McGrath: That is why I made the point that this is not an issue of Translink's management. However, members made the point that directors have a fiduciary responsibility and cannot be seen to trade when these issues exist. It puts them in a really invidious position. It is not of their making — I am absolutely clear on that — but they are still the directors of the company. It is unfortunate. The directors and the new interim chair have made that point.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I wanted to add that because I am concerned about some of the commentary and the difficulties and pressures that that will create for individuals.

Mr McGrath: That is right. The other point is that, if we had not had this issue and Translink had reserves, that money would have been invested in public transport schemes that were self-financed by Translink. So, £30 million or £40 million of capital that could have gone into buses or stuff like that has been foregone just to keep it ticking over because we have been unable to put in adequate funding. There is a big opportunity cost to that.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I appreciate that. Thank you.

Mrs D Kelly: Thanks for your presentation. I hope that the new Executive will have a different approach to infrastructure than the previous one did. Obviously, the three years of collapse has not helped budgetary pressures.

You and others, Committee members included, made comments around social capital and concessionary fares. Is the concessionary fares fund that is allocated from the Executive to the Department for Infrastructure ring-fenced, or is it dependent on usage?

Mr McGrath: It is not dependent on usage. Essentially, we have a budget of £40 million, but our budget has stood still; £40 million just about covered it in, say, 2014-15. We have not been able to add to the £40 million because we have had no headroom, whereas, predictably, demand has gone up, which is why there is a differential. We do not have the £8 million or £9 million now to supplement that budget.

Mrs D Kelly: Others said that it is cross-cutting, and it is. It is a very good argument about how it gets people moving and allows them to visit family etc. It enriches lives.

Mr McGrath: Absolutely.

Mrs D Kelly: I am interested in the Executive's approach to concessionary fares. Have the Executive valued that to date? If it has stood still, it has not helped an awful lot. You also said that it is one of the most generous schemes across these islands. I do not know whether we have any comparative tables or whether those could be provided to us. It might be of interest. People will worry about concessionary fares because they would love to see them being retained.

Mr McGrath: We have a gap at the minute. If the scheme remains as it is, the cost will just keep going up because more people are living longer and getting out. Something would need to be done even to keep it at that level. People need to recognise its huge social value in getting people out and about. They also need to recognise that, if you did not have it, the cost of that might be greater than finding the money to balance it. Equally, it is demand-led. It is £48 million now. It might be £58 million in four or five years' time. It is a tight budget. I do not know what the Executive's collective view is as we are only a matter of weeks in, and they are looking at it. Clearly, when you are looking at a Programme for Government and all the cross-cutting issues, the impact — just as we said about the public transport network — of it being curtailed could run across a number of Departments.

Mrs D Kelly: I have another question about expertise. I have spoken to people about contractors and subcontractors. I am told that, because of the uncertainty of funding in the Department for Infrastructure, it has been very difficult because, when you got a pot of money to fix a bit of road or do maintenance, the contractors were not there. I was told that many of them have gone to England, Scotland and Donegal. There is some north-west development, but it is in County Donegal.

Mr McGrath: In certain cases, contractors decided to go into another business because our business dropped off. The amount of money that we spend on road maintenance and resource dropped significantly and has stayed low down. Business that contractors looked forward to previously disappeared, or it was uncertain. They needed income to keep their workforce going, so perhaps they decided to get out of the tarmac business or something.

Mrs D Kelly: Should the Department be so fortunate as to have a huge investment in the incoming Budget, do you have any concerns, or have you entered into dialogue with the industry?

Mr McGrath: My roads colleagues and others are in constant dialogue. We work very closely with the industry because the point is well made: there is no point in having money if you do not have someone who can do the work for you. That is flagged up frequently by Gordon Best and others. We work very closely. Industry capability and capacity is important to us but, equally, if we do not have money to spend, we cannot magic it.

Mrs D Kelly: You are confident, though, that there are shovel-ready projects and, hopefully, people in the industry who are able to do the work?

Mr McGrath: The issue is mainly on the resource side; we are spending dramatically less on road maintenance than we were with damage. As I said, we are still spending, in capital terms, more than any other Department. We spend our money; we do not surrender because we get it spent. We are spending £2 million a week on the A6. We are very efficient in getting it done. I think that some of the smaller contractors who would have done basic road maintenance may have, as you said, gone out of that business or gone elsewhere. Whether you get them back is a different matter. That was a macro issue for the construction industry as a result of the recession. For a lot of them, most of the work is not here any more.

Mrs D Kelly: Traditionally, your Department would have had expectations of in-year monitoring rounds from late November onwards, but that seems to have diminished year on year. Is that a true observation?

Mr McGrath: It has always been an ambition of the Executive and Departments that you spend your money better and, therefore, do not have surrenders. We used to be the Department that soaked up other surrenders but, as I keep saying, you need somebody to surrender it for you to get it in the first place, and if other Departments are getting better, which they are — that is a good thing — there is less. When Danny Kennedy was the Minister, the point was made that having a funding strategy that is dependent on giving us late-year money is not a sensible way to plan your work. This is one of my few technical bits: putting tarmac down in the winter is not as effective as putting it down in the summer. There is a non-cost. Andrew Murray can tell you about that in detail. That is one of my little snippets on that. It is not the case that it does not matter when you spend the money; it does matter when you spend the money. We welcome any late-year additions, but we would like to be on top of it with a decent opening allocation and not have to rely on a drip feed. In a sense, I have colleagues who are perhaps conditioned to getting a lot of money in-year and, therefore, assume it will come. When it does not come on that scale, it does not fit their rules of engagement.

Mrs D Kelly: We can see that in the roads maintenance budget in particular.

Mr McGrath: What we are doing is not good. The main motorways and some of the main roads are looked after by PPP contracts, so maintenance there is guaranteed because it is in the contract. It is lesser roads and rural roads that are suffering.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): I am conscious of the time that we have spent, so, Mr Boylan, you have to be really brief. No long monologues, all right?

Mr Boylan: Chair, it is really important. You asked about Translink. If it does not get the money and there is a shortfall, is the Department in breach of contract? What way is that model set up?

Mr McGrath: That is a good question. There are two issues. One is that we have a legal obligation under the Transport Act to maintain Translink as a going concern, and we have a public service agreement with it — an EU agreement — that says, "Here is the money we give you, and here is the network you deliver to us". It is, by nature, a contract. There are another two years to go, and there will be a renewal, and, hopefully, the Committee will spend time on that issue. In spirit, we are sort of breaching the contract. We are not giving a subsidy for uneconomic routes that it is running, and we are now not refunding it for concessionary fares. It simply acts as an agent for us.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): In this instance, it may be more than just not "in spirit".

Mr McGrath: Possibly.

The Chairperson (Miss McIlveen): Thank you very much.