Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not suggesting the Minister set out to do so, but he has not accurately represented what I said. I said that additional costs should not be imposed on a family that has had a traditional pattern of attendance at a post-primary centre in the event that the level of school transport service that was made available to older siblings in that family is denied to a younger sibling who is about to enter secondary school. In recent years, the use of Google maps when people have been applying for school transport online has resulted in distances being measured using roads that are not capable of carrying motor cars or school transport buses. It is that context that I am talking about local flexibility and local knowledge. I fully appreciate that a scheme cannot be designed to suit every family. We should have flexibility. Past patterns of attendance should be taken into account. That washes out of the system anyway as the years go on. By and large, all the difficulties being encountered by specific families, with which all of us have dealt, will be ironed out within a few years. I remind the Minister that many of the costs associated with the concessionary transport scheme are being met by families that are under financial pressure.

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