Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I wish to bring to the Tánaiste's attention an issue with the eligibility criteria used by Bus Éireann. I am dealing with a child who is attending her third-nearest school, or so Bus Éireann deems it. When I analysed how Bus Éireann calculated the route, I saw that it was strictly enforcing the term “the shortest traversable route”. To achieve that shortest traversable route and disqualify the child, Bus Éireann brought out a measuring wheel before I met it one week and walked 300 m through a housing estate to shave off a couple of hundred metres, thereby deeming the child ineligible. This is a fact - I met Bus Éireann on site. Is such a prescriptive interpretation by Bus Éireann in the spirit of the school transport system? The spirit of the system is to get children to school on a bus.

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