Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is not very helpful. The school transport system is a mess. The Minister is talking about €750 million this year, €450 million more than last year. He would be better off subsidising parents to drive their kids to school and forget his green ideals. We have buses passing by and cars travelling in front of them and behind them and the whole thing is organised chaos. The Minister said the numbers spiked in September but the Government knew, since the schools closed last March, that this problem was coming down the track. Can the Government not think ahead? The Department managers would not survive in business for a week. The Minister should know as he is a former businessman. Surely one plans ahead when one sees what is coming down the track.

We have 85,000 people waiting for driver tests, we will have a carbon tax hitting us in the budget, we literally have no rail services in County Tipperary, although the Minister has made the right noises about how he wants to see stations restored, and we have no guarantee on the Expressway services. Thank God for PJ Kavanagh, McCarra's, Lambert's, Denny and Kit Whelan and Mr. Toohey up in Nenagh. Thank God also for the parents' groups who are able to organise private routes. They can do it efficiently with buses. Those bus owners have got no support whatsoever from the pandemic unemployment payment or anything else. They are getting no support to sanitise their buses either. It is discrimination against rural people all the time and rural children are being bullied. Can the Minister imagine the damage it does to a child when his or her two siblings are taken on and they cannot be taken on? Just think of it happening to a child of five, seven or eight years of age. The Minister should think about that for one minute.

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