Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish Deputy Foley well in her brief as Minister. In my contribution to the debate on school transport, I will refer to a case with which the Minister will be familiar. It relates to John the Baptist community school in Hospital, County Limerick. At present, 38 students in east Limerick are without bus tickets. They live in such areas as Fedamore, Carnane, Ballybricken, Ballyneety, Knockea and Bruff.

The specific circumstances concern a common applications system through which people in Limerick city have to apply, similar to the CAO system. In this area of east Limerick, the common application system takes account of students' distance from the GPO in Limerick, rather than from individual schools in the town. This has given rise to an anomaly whereby students are deemed to be closer to the GPO than to their local school, John the Baptist community school in Hospital. As such it is not deemed to be the nearest school.

If their home is more than 4.8 km away, they do not qualify as eligible for transport to the school. Bus Éireann locally has been working to try to resolve this issue in recent years. The anomaly goes even further in that as well as being deemed not eligible for their local school, many students are also being deemed not to qualify for schools in the city under the eligibility criteria for the individual schools. Bus Éireann has made a submission to the Department, which I understand is being examined, in which it has sought approval not for new routes but merely to upgrade the size of buses on the existing routes to ensure the children who are affected can attend their local schools. All these children should have been deemed eligible for transport to their local school but that has not happened because of this anomaly. I ask the Minister to give John the Baptist community school in Hospital her urgent attention and to address the difficulties for children in the east Limerick areas of Fedamore, Carnane, Ballybricken, Knockea and Caherconlish village itself. It is hugely important that this issue be resolved.

There is a lot of talk about encouraging children to cycle to school. There is a strong case for the introduction of a bike to school scheme which might be modelled on the bike to work scheme and would include children from all sections of society.

I conclude by asking the Minister again to give urgent attention to the situation of school transport for pupils in the east Limerick area to John the Baptist community school in Hospital. There is a serious anomaly in the provision, as I outlined, which means children in local areas are not deemed eligible for transport to the school. I hope she will give serious consideration to the request to the Department from Bus Éireann for increased bus sizes on the existing routes.

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