Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have always talked about the way that the Government works. It is departmental and sometimes there is a silo mentality for all sorts of reasons, some of which are good. There is an opportunity for the Department to get involved in the area of school transport. Those of us around this table who represent rural areas spend most of August, September and October each year arguing with the Department about whether people are a mile or two miles closer to where they need to be. If a child lives 2 yd or 100 yd closer to a school, he or she does not qualify for the school bus, he or she cannot get a ticket and he or she has to be driven to school by someone..

At some point, and it does not necessarily have to come from the budget of the Department of Education, there should be a climate change initiative to change the mindset of those who use the service and give the service free to everybody. There would be a cost, but there are a couple of aspects involved. There are many costs that the Department incurs in order to provide infrastructure for all sorts of other things. The Department could make sure that every child who lives in close proximity to a school and whose house the bus passes would be collected. Some families live 100 m too close to a school and, as a result, the children cannot get the bus. This is despite the fact that there might be space on the bus, and there are plenty of buses out there. If people see buses being used every day, it will get them used to the notion of using public transport right from the very start and will broaden the reach of the service.

Is there a cost? Yes. When you go to the Department of Education, it states that it cannot afford what is proposed because there is a need for more special needs assistants or whatever. I suggest that the Department of Transport should look at school transport in terms of it being a climate change initiative and getting people into the habit of getting on buses. It should seek to break down the impediments that are there are look at the matter from a long-term perspective. The latter would result in their being a lot less traffic. If you go to any primary and secondary school in a rural area, the big demand from the school principal will be in respect of more parking spaces or a turning bay to facilitate all of the cars used to transport children to and from school. It would be of great if we could get that right.

There are initiatives in this regard. Senator Garvey is not with us but she was very involved in the green schools programme before she was elected to the Seanad. I urge the Department to work in the context of the existing initiatives from a transport perspective because there is an opportunity here to change mindsets. It is like getting somebody to purchase an electric car. As soon as people do so, you really have them. They will then start looking at insulating their homes and making considerable investments on the journey towards carbon neutrality. My suggestion is around that aspect.