Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Now we will have wandering into another Minister's territory. I hope the Acting Chairman does not mind.

I agree with the Acting Chairman. There would be sense in having the school transport system within the Department of Transport. This is not in any way criticism of the Department of Education but because what we do in the Department is transport. Also, I see potential benefits and synergies. We should be integrating school transport with the Connecting Ireland facilities mentioned earlier on or with some of our health service transport system. The integration of education, health, social welfare and other transport systems into the one service would make sense to me. That bus could be used in the morning but then go on to be the second run, etc. One of the potential benefits from the Department of Transport being involved is that we would be able to integrate it into the other bus services. That already happens. In Dublin, for instance, we do not have a school bus service. One gets on the bus. It would provide new options for people in rural Ireland. For example, it might allow those Connecting Ireland facilities to turn into five rotations rather than three.

I absolutely agree with the Acting Chairman on the second issue. Some 30% of our traffic in the morning is school children being driven to school. That is at significant cost to parents. It is not great for children, I would argue. It is nice to have one's children in the back of the car and chatting to them, but the freedom and independence one learns from being able to make one's own way to school is one of the benefits. There is also the difficulty outside the school gates where there are 300 cars and what that does in terms of safety. For so many different reasons, we need to reverse what happened. When I was going to school, fadó fadó in Éireann, most kids walked, cycled or took the bus.

Now most kids are driven. In some counties and areas, the issue is acute because we are creating a car dependency that is not in anyone's interest. The Connecting Ireland mobility plan is our number one priority because it has been designed in a way that it integrates different State services. I believe it should include education.