Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I thank them for the briefing documentation they supplied.

A number of issues and points have already been raised and made by my committee colleagues, especially around school transport. One particular issue crosses with special needs education. There is an ongoing issue with transportation to St. Augustine's School in Blackrock. A combination of school buses and taxis is being used. However, as the witnesses will appreciate, when the service is not reliable and there is a change to parents' routine it has huge ramifications for a family. Will the Department look at that? I know it is aware of the issue, but it is ongoing. I will leave that point there.

On special education and the summer programme, I note from the information the Department provided that 51,000 children availed of the summer programme, which is an increase of 111%. A lot of changes have been made to that programme. However, there are still challenges with offering it in some schools. What are the Department's plans for the summer ahead to try to incentivise more schools to participate in this much-needed programme that has been a great success but is not available to all families?