This is the section that lays on the board of CIE the obligation to pay their way having account of the money provided by the Minister. I should like to return briefly to a point I was making to the Minister about the potential loss next year for CIE. When I suggested that a conservative estimate for the loss for the coming financial year 1975, would be around the £25 million mark, I was, of course, allowing for increases in fares in that. Experience of recent years, and, indeed, the experience of some 15 years back but, certainly, the last three or four years, has been that even though there have been annual increases in fares, sometimes very large increases, these have never been sufficient to enable CIE to even reduce their losses, or keep their losses at the level of the previous year. They go up year by year in spite of additional fares. There is no reason that I can see with the present rate of inflation why they should not also be in this position next year.
At the moment, as the Minister has pointed out, CIE are making losses at the rate of £19 million in a full year. They are being allotted in the Estimates for 1975 £17 million. The suggestion is, in other words, that whether by means of enormous increases in fares or other means their losses are going to decrease by £2 million, I would be interested to learn from the Minister why this figure has been inserted because it does not make sense.