Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am afraid it does not alleviate them. When the Minister came off script at the end of his reply, he was a bit more honest about what is happening. I fully appreciate that the culture of Dublin Bus is not to leave any child at a bus stop. The drivers make a remarkable contribution to our city. They are generally friendly and reliable. However, at this time of level 5 restrictions, there is a very serious difficulty in that there are simply not enough buses to operate at 25% capacity. As a result, children are being left at bus stops in the morning, afternoon and evening. They are being left to walk in the rain and cold. We are facing into another three weeks of level 5 lockdown, which means another three weeks of this problem continuing.

The Minister talked about monitoring the situation but there is not really time to do so. We have been told throughout the pandemic that it is important to act swiftly. I am not sure what that looks like in terms of devising more of a Dunkirk strategy that would see as many buses as possible, private or otherwise, reallocated to come into service. The current situation is simply untenable. In a few weeks we will be coming out of a lockdown that was shorter than the first one and we hope to see an increase in capacity. The problem, however, is that we could be back to level 5 in January. The current situation is causing untold hardship in schools every morning, with children coming in late and wet from the rain. The same thing is happening on their journey home. I do not doubt for a second that the Minister is taking this issue very seriously but the outcome needs to be a lot better. The situation that is arising at bus stops throughout the city, from Monday to Friday, is not tenable and it is not fair. We can do better by our students.

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