Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am referring specifically to the nearest school rule, which came in last year. There are some situations where a secondary school is stretched beyond capacity while other schools are within capacity and which students are currently attending. Under these rules recently introduced, those students are now being required to go to the school which is over subscribed in order to get free transport. That would draw them away from the school where there is space. That defeats the purpose because if we are to follow that through, the school that is oversubscribed would have to build new classrooms in order to accommodate them, and the school which already had the space and in which the capital was already invested, would lose those students. Consideration has not been given to particular cases like that.

I have an example of this between the villages of Ture and Muff. The tradition has been that students from both villages go to Moville Community College, which was built about ten years ago. The two secondary schools in Buncrana, which are nearer to them, are oversubscribed and Buncrana College has submitted an application for a new campus. The school has been putting in temporary accommodation over the years and there is no longer room on the existing site for such accommodation. There are about 30 students in Ture and Muff who are currently attending Moville Community College, and they are being told by the Department that if they went over a hilly road, they would be closer to Buncrana than Moville. That is not a sensible route to take if there is any frost at all. A bus would not take that route either. The school management has written to the Department on this but consideration should be given to the merits of individual situations like this.

We are dealing here with a small minority of situations but that flexibility does not exist at the moment. It defeats the purpose and if there was a proper appeals mechanism, we would come across situations where it makes more sense to continue to provide the free transport even if it is a little further away.