Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the two and a half years the Government has been in office, there has been a sad and frustrating predictability about the school transport chaos that has hit different villages throughout Ireland, including in Wicklow, every September. It essentially has the same characteristics. Letters of notification of withdrawal of Bus Éireann school bus transport services to families in Redcross and Tinahely are due to what the company claims are capacity issues. In reality, a dysfunctional management system is failing to provide adequate school transport services to students and families who are willing to pay for them. These notices were issued in late August and, in some instances, families were not notified at all prior to the start of the school term.

In the case of Tinahely and Redcross, leaving certificate and junior certificate examination students lost their concessionary tickets even though they have been travelling on the bus for years. The start of these important examination years is being marked by unnecessary stress caused by a system that should have a student and family based approach to service delivery. More than 20 families received these notifications and many have no alternative method of getting their children to school in Coláiste Chill Mhantáin or Coláiste Bhríde. Parents are obliged to car pool, change their working hours, take time off or consider changing schools in what has turned out to be an annual farce in the school transport system. In both of these cases, the schools that are deemed eligible do not have transport services from Redcross or Tinahely. The pick-up point for the services are located some distance from the villages, over 4.5 km in the case of Redcross and over 3 km in the case of Tinahely, yet both villages have school transport travelling through the villages to Coláiste Chill Mhantáin and Coláiste Bhríde. There is no other public transport structure serving Redcross and Tinahely.

The stress caused to the students and their families cannot be underestimated and the poor response so far must be changed. The families in Tinahely and Redcross deserve better than this. The problem will not go away but will only get worse as more children will be attending these schools in the years to come.

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