James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for being here today. I appreciate the witnesses are not responsible for policy but are merely implementing it. The people whom I have spoken to in Bus Éireann have been very helpful in giving information but they are very much stuck with the rules. Nonetheless, Mr. Kent and Ms Flynn are here and I have questions to put.

There is a lot of interest in this throughout the country. That is reflective of the deep frustration, anger and exasperation of many parents from Donegal to Kerry, to Wexford, and everywhere in between. My office has been inundated with calls, texts, and messages on Facebook, as has the office of every Deputy and Senator. The same things come up repeatedly. For example, in the case of a rural primary school that has 30 children living near it, of those 30, 28 are going to one secondary school but two are told that, because their Eircode has them living 0.3 km closer to another town, they are sent to that town and a school away from all their school friends, even though there is no bus on that route. That is frustrating not just for the parents but for the children to have that separation forced on them and to have to go to what may be a perfectly good town but one with which they are unfamiliar. I think of Kiltealy and Ballymurn in the Enniscorthy district, both of which form a triangle, as it were. The school is at one end but there are people living at the bottom of the triangle who went to the primary school but now have to go in another direction for secondary school.

It is very worrying and distressing to hear that up to one third of buses have major or dangerous defects. If the witnesses find that children have been travelling on a bus with a major or dangerous defect, aside from taking the bus off the contract, is that ever reported to An Garda Síochána?

Why is there no de minimis rule applied in terms of distance if someone is 0.1 km, 0.2 km or 0.3 km outside the distance outlined? It is a rule that is applied in regulations in many areas. Why is it not applied here?

Where someone who has been going to a school on a concessionary ticket for two or three years suddenly has it taken off him or her, is that purely a policy decision?