Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I want to emphasise that in order to allow parents ample time to consider all their school options a 20 month gap was allowed between the announcement of this measure and the time when parents needed to apply for school transport for the coming school year. Those changes were posted on the Department's website in October 2011 and the updated scheme was made available on 1 February this year. I should add that the Department contacted post-primary schools directly on two occasions in addition to the relevant education partners formally advising them of the changes.

Even in times of plenty one could never argue an economic case for transporting children other than to the school that is nearest to where they live. Deputy Ferris may say that parents wish for their children to attend the school of their choice - all of us as parents wish that - but it is not possible, and never would be possible, to facilitate that choice by providing transport to the school of choice for every child in the country.

The transport scheme is available to underpin the school system, particularly across rural Ireland, but it was not designed to bring every child to the school of their choice. That is not what the system was about.

Deputy Ferris pointed out that when we have the radii of two schools intermeshing with one another, situations will arise where a child who lives in one location is not entitled to transport to a particular centre while a child who lives 100 metres away is entitled to transport. That will happen everywhere where those two radii meet.

Deputy O'Mahony stated that there may be additional costs associated with perhaps providing new classrooms. Research carried out by Bus Éireann would indicate that 95% of pupils are already attending their nearest centre and therefore it is unlikely to result in significant capital costs involved in building new classrooms. Second, if it is, that would be a once-off capital cost associated with that development whereas the savings accruing from a more efficient and cost effective school transport system will accrue to us year after year.

On the Deputy's comment about the cost of school transport, he is correct in pointing out that the cost per pupil has risen exponentially in recent years but that is because it includes 8,000 children with special needs who, because of their special needs and the special transport that needs to be provided for them, incur a far greater cost. Some 8,000 children with special needs are being transported every day whereas a very short time ago very little of that was happening. During the transitionary phase and while we allow the current cohort of students to work their way through the system, some anomalous situations will occur. That is unavoidable, but it is a transitionary phase and, once complete, we will have a more efficient and cost-effective school transport system in place that will be fair, equitable and will be applied equitably throughout the country.

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