James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I hear what the Senator is saying. On the income disregard, my view is we should continue to revise it. It has progressed upwards in recent years. One thing it is useful to state at this point is that whatever I do, whatever I am guided to do in the context of the cost of education and consultation, is for next year because the budget for this year is already set. What is going to happen in September was decided last year by the then Minister and Government. I am the new Minister coming into the Department, so I can make changes and engage but it will be delivered through the budgetary process this October for the following September. This is the type of timeframe we are working off.

Regarding the buses, it is a bit like the driving test and other aspects mentioned earlier. It is not my brief but it used to be, so I know a little bit about it. There is great frustration about this issue around the country. There are regulatory views that there is a certain medical point at which people are perhaps no longer encouraged to drive buses commercially and the age of 70 was set as this point. I am not a doctor, so I am not going to get into a discussion today about whether this is right or wrong. I am, though, aware there are frustrations in this regard. Equally, there may be arguments to be made that there are differences between operating a bus multiple times a day over the course of a working week and then using one occasionally for perhaps sporting activities at the weekend or something like that. They have different demands. Again, however, as it is not my Department any more, I had better not get into the details of that massive brief.