Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I must declare that I am a school bus operator. My family have been doing it since 1956. Since the announcement that the capacity of the buses should be reduced to 50% - I heard the Minister of State talking about transport - many children going to national schools and secondary schools cannot get their ticket to go on the bus. There is no answer to any phone call or email. Many children who applied and paid the money have not got their tickets yet and those who were entitled and applied on the basis of a medical card have not got their tickets. The buses are passing them on the way to school in rural areas. This is hurting rural areas because these children have no other way to go to school. It is as though something has happened in the Department since that announcement by the public health service, which by the way was too late. We have been asking about and highlighting what was going to happen all year and it left it until the last seven days to make this announcement. It is unfair. I am asking the Minister to go back to the Government to see what will be done tomorrow and give these children their tickets. They are entitled to go to school the same as the children in Dublin areas are. We are not denying them that right or saying they should not go to school.

School inspectors are doing their very best and they can do no more. Their hands are tied. When NPHET came out, with only a week to go, and stated that the capacity of the buses should be reduced to 50%, it was wrong. It should not have done so because it was too late then. The children will have to be given tickets to go on the buses. If the children do not have tickets, the Department will not have to provide extra buses to make up the 50%. That is what the Department wants.

Closing down the lines of communications is the wrong way of doing it. Emails are not working the way they used to and the children cannot get their tickets. It is a significant problem in Kerry but, as I have learned in this Chamber, it is a problem in every other county. There is some direction, which has come from high up, not to give out any more tickets and that is wronging the children of rural Ireland.

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