Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

If we are looking at one of the things in the programme for Government, it is about increasing multi-denominational schools and that is a serious issue for us in Galway, where people are travelling a distance to go to a school that is multi-denominational. They do not have a bus available because it is not their nearest school. I know of instances where that is happening. I would hope that would come out in the wash. I suppose the main reason we are here is around the fact that people are not getting the school bus who got the school bus before. Even within my own family, we got a ticket despite the fact the school has moved and is now closer to our home, so there is no need for a school bus. We did not apply for a school bus but we got a ticket. Can the Minister address the issue of the failures within the process? The first is that we have people who are getting the school bus who do not need it and did not apply for it. What has happened there? Second, surely there should be a system which would have prioritised those who applied in the first place. That did not happening and everybody had to reapply and be put back into the same bundle. Why was that decision taken?