John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of seeing spaces on buses, about 9% or 10% of people who pay for school transport do not take it up. It is very difficult to deal with that. If people pay for it, they may feel they will take a chance on driving their kids to school anyway. We have taken legal views on that and it is not within our remit to return the money to these families and request that they give us back the seat. That cannot be done. It is a legally binding agreement so we have some difficulties. The difficulties we have at present are with concessionary tickets. The scheme was put in place for eligible and special needs children. In the three years that I have been dealing with it, I know of no special needs child who did not get school transport. I know of no eligible child who did not get the rural grant or school transport. We are reviewing the scheme regarding concessionary tickets but that means providing extra money. In the case of a 25-seater bus with 20 eligible children and five children with concessionary seats, if an eligible or special needs child makes themselves available from a village, town or city, we are legally obliged to put that child on the bus and remove a child with a concessionary ticket. I do not like doing that. Often that is very painful and difficult but we are obliged under legislation to put the eligible or special needs child on the bus. I have never turned down a meeting with any Deputy, mayor, councillor or family. I have done my best to facilitate as many people as I can. The system is coming apart at the seams. We are now spending €209 million and some people are still not getting school transport because of concessionary passengers. All special needs children and all eligible children are getting transport.

We are looking again at extra finance in the budget. I cannot say we will get it but I have appealed for it, as has the Minister, Deputy McHugh. We sought an extra €4 million, which would address the matter raised by Deputy Catherine Murphy. If she is re-elected, which I am sure will be the case, the Deputy will face the same problem in that the school transport problem will be cleared this year but she will be looking for another €4 million or €5 million again next year, in particular for concessionary tickets.

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