Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentation. The figure of 450 children with special needs waiting for school transport is shocking. That speaks to a failure of the system. I take on board the point that Mr. Dolan made that a number of applications came in after 1 September 2018. Even so, we are nearly a month into the school year. We have come across one case in County Tipperary of a child with autism who was used to getting the school bus, but because there is a new autistic unit set up in Birdhill, he does not have a place on the bus. The child suffers the trauma of no longer having this routine. When Bus Éireann was asked what the issue was, their response was that the tender had not been sorted and there was a problem with the tender. That should not be happening at this stage of the year. The issues should have been dealt with.

I agree with my colleague, Senator Gallagher, that the system is clearly broken. I would not want to allocate blame to any of the individuals who are appearing today. I accept what the Chair said in terms of the Minister, but there are policy problems at the heart of this issue. It is another aspect of this piecemeal education system that we have had since independence, which fails on so many levels when it comes to access and equality.

I wish to share one other brief point. Senator Byrne mentioned Caherconlish. What is even more bizarre is the matter my colleague, Deputy Quinlivan, raised about the accident involving a school bus in Caherconlish last year.

Thankfully, there were no fatalities. However, one of the children on that bus has been denied a place on the bus this year. She has been offered a place on another bus and asked to get on the other bus at the exact point where the accident took place. One really could not make this up. Let us think about the amount of trauma that these children suffered at the time. The girl had to be encouraged to get back on the bus afterwards and now the system has asked her to not get that bus with her school friends, wait for a separate bus and access the bus at the point where the accident took place. When the issue was raised with the authorities they said there was nothing they could do. The line beyond common sense has been breached in this instance. I appreciate that it is not fair, in one respect, to use this example but I must do so because it shows that the system is fundamentally broken. It strikes me that the resources must not be right. It strikes me that a unit in the Department comprising ten people is not enough but beyond that there is an issue of common sense. I accept that the witnesses may not be aware of the inverse situations. I ask them to take these away because there are real people waiting for real solutions and it is unacceptable for this situation to continue.

I will finish by asking a couple of broad questions. We have spoken about a review of the school transport system. The Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Halligan, has committed to conduct a review of school transport in parts of Donegal. Does the Department believe that the entire system and seat allocation needs to be reviewed in order to make the scheme more equitable?

Last year, the Minister of State addressed the issue of children with medical cards and said that the scheme needs to be examined. Has the issue been examined yet? He also mentioned the unacceptable journeys that people and children with special needs must undertake or the excess journey time. I know that the matter is still an issue. Has the Department conducted a review of excessive journey times for teenagers and children with special needs and produced additional guidelines?