The inquiry, by the Scottish Parliament's transport, infrastructure and climate change committee (TICC), has advertised all over Scotland for opinions on the state of the country's ferry service network - and despite a huge range of live issues affecting the island's ferry services, barely a scrap of written evidence has been submitted relating to the Rothesay-Wemyss Bay and Rhubodach-Colintraive routes.

In February we published an article advising that while the MSPs on the committee had no plans to visit Bute to gather evidence, islanders could still send their views to the inquiry in a variety of ways.

Eighty-two written submissions had been published on the committee's website (http://tinyurl.com/4hhyoy) by Monday afternoon, concerning ferry services to Dunoon, Cumbrae, Arran, Islay, Jura, Mull, Lismore, Tiree, Barra, Skye, the Uists, Harris, Lewis and both Orkney and Shetland.

But with only a few days left until the final deadline for responses of Friday, April 25, the only opinions expressed about the Bute service have come, not from the island, but from Alan Scoles, operations planning director of WA Shearings, who own the Glenburn Hotel and bring coach parties of visitors to Rothesay throughout the year.

Mr Scoles' submission asked the inquiry to take careful consideration of the impact that fares have for trade on Bute and, as we report elsewhere, criticised proposals for an hourly service on the Rothesay route.

The one possible saving grace, as far as the expression of Bute opinion is concerned, might come via the option to submit opinions to the inquiry via an online survey form - we know of at least one set of views to have been sent this way, but the committee does not plan to make all these survey responses public.

Alastair Macfie, senior assistant clerk to the TICC committee, told us: "In relation to the online survey, at last count we had more than three hundred responses.

"However, until the survey deadline has passed and the results have been collated, we will not know how many responses have been received specifically from Bute.

"The intention is for parliamentary staff to produce an analysis of the responses which will be placed online and circulated to the committee.

"It is also intended to make copies of all the survey responses available to the committee members for them to consider.

"It is not at this stage proposed to place the individual survey responses online."

As part of its evidence-gathering work, the committee visited Oban earlier this month and will meet in Shetland this Monday, April 28; individual members have also gathered evidence in Lewis, Arran, Mallaig and Dunoon.

The findings of the inquiry, which sought to look at issues around current and potential future routes, times, capacity, integration with other transport modes and competition, are likely to be published in the summer.