Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

One Minister of State from the Department of Health and Children handling a cross-departmental range of issues and reading out a prepared script is a disrespect.

I will give the last minute of my time to Deputy Kehoe. This is a very important issue, one of the most intractable and frustrating issues I have dealt with in my time in this House. The pupils in the growing village of Blackwater in County Wexford have traditionally, by and large, gone to secondary schools in Wexford town. Some have gone to Kilmuckridge but, by and large, the pattern over decades has seen the majority going to secondary school in Wexford town, a pattern which continues to this day.

For some inexplicable reason, the catchment boundary for the provision of school transport to these pupils became an issue some years ago and the facility to provide transport for these pupils was withdrawn. The result is that there are now 49 young people from the Blackwater area literally left on the side of the road. After much agitation it was finally decided and agreed on 13 October last by Wexford VEC, the school transport office and Bus Éireann that at least 23 of these pupils were eligible, properly and legitimately, for school transport as they resided in the catchment boundary for Wexford town. No tickets have issued to these pupils. No transport has been provided despite the fact they were notified formally by the school liaison officer and moneys were accepted. The latest twist in the tail of this ongoing disgraceful saga was on 9 November when parents were informed by the transport liaison officer that when she, the transport liaison officer properly authorised to deal with these matters, requested transport for these pupils, the Department of Education and Science was not in a position to sanction transport for these 23 pupils because of a mapping discrepancy.

I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, to convey to the Minister for Education and Science the real and palpable anger in County Wexford, especially in the Blackwater area, on this issue. There is a deliberate frustration of the rights of these pupils and their parents by the Minister for Education and Science in this matter. Sight unseen the Department has declared them ineligible even though they are within the revised boundary submitted in what is described and accepted in Wexford as a gerrymandered map which I have and which the Department has belatedly produced. It could not be the original map because it has references on it to areas that did not exist at the time the original map was drawn up.

The frustration needs to be brought to an end. I ask the Minister of State present — unfortunately it is not the Minister responsible for these matters — to explain how this pattern of abuse has continued for these children and their parents and when it will end. When will these pupils be given the proper transport to carry on their education like every other citizen in the State?

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