Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. The actual point at which children are picked up should be a relevant factor in determining eligibility. The idea behind it was to try to save money, because there is certainly a shortage of money, but the children in this case were never picked up from their house. Their pick-up point is within the criteria. When they asked if the children could be picked up from the house over the last few years, because it was causing a problem for them, they were told "No". When it suits, the company will use one distance and when it does not suit it will use another.

One of the children will miss 19 days of school between now and Christmas as a result of this, unless the mother or father gives up work. The alternative is to get a taxi, which will cost €150 a month. The family has offered to pay extra if that is what it takes to get on the bus, but they have been told that unless there are ten pupils on the bus, the extra money cannot be paid. I do not think they are being treated fairly. This is leaving the family in an awful situation. The message being sent out is that the Government is encouraging someone to give up a job and paying taxes that help to pay for these services, in order to justify some ideology.

I fear the idea behind this plan is just to get rid of many of these schools by making it completely unfeasible for them to survive, which is not fair at the end of the day. If there is any hope that our area is to develop, all of this infrastructure will be needed there. Bit by bit, there is a downward spiral until eventually we will have tumbleweed going through these areas and absolutely nothing else.

A bit of fairness is required here. Where the bus picks them up is within the required distance; it does not pick them up from the house so why measure it from the house?

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