Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

These statements could not come at a more fitting time. The Minister has come to this House and detailed the review that is ongoing and the communication and conversations that have taken place. Two and a half years after that review started it is not the success the Minister seems to think it is and neither is trying to say that while routes have not been cancelled, children are not on the bus because that is all that parents actually care about. All they care about is that their child is on the bus for which they have paid and for which they have been approved. Under no circumstances should the Minister misconstrue that the provision of financial grants is the equivalent of providing a service when it simply is not.

In some places, school transport is in chaos. Parents are telling me that not only is it taking a toll on their mental health, it is beginning to take a toll on their physical health. It is causing unnecessary stress and it is becoming a financial burden at a time when families are least able to take on board another cost. Parents the length and breadth of the country are left with no choice but to take annual leave from work to bring their children to school. These are the same children who are now facing another invisible barrier to accessing education.

The shortage of school buses is a national issue and is clearly having a disproportionate effect on children with special educational needs. The Minister can imagine that the pressure parents of these children are under on a consistent and daily basis is only being compounded by the lack of transport to get their children to school.

The Minister referenced the communication and customer call service of Bus Éireann in her statement. Families are telling me that the engagement with Bus Éireann and the Department of Education is not only angering and frustrating them, but they fail to see any level of empathy or any willingness to move towards a potential solution. Most parents say they receive nothing more than a generic reply. This review needs to be finished and published and there then needs to be a comprehensive plan to implement a fit-for-purpose school transport system.

Before coming in here, I pulled out a couple of emails from today. One stated that:

Unfortunately I am back to you again as I have heard absolutely nothing from Bus Éireann despite lodging a formal complaint three weeks ago. I contacted the call line again this morning and the very helpful person on the other end could find no record of my child in the system despite me giving her the reference number that Bus Éireann gave me back in March. We are still taking time off work everyday to bring her to school while the coach is transporting just four children from her class.

Another email from a parent living in a small village whose child goes to the local community college, which is under ten minutes away, stated: "I am within the catchment area of this school, so my child is entitled to a full bus ticket". The email went on to state that "this is the 4th week where we have no Bus Service". The writer of the email stated that they work in the opposite direction to her home and is now relying on her 73-year-old mother to collect their child from school. The email stated that a minibus passes their door every day carrying children and that it led them to wonder why their child is being refused a seat on that bus.

Another email is very concerning. It involves a family that has come through homelessness and has finally managed to get somewhere it can call its own. This family is now facing a journey of 20 km twice a day five days a week because there is no mechanism for that child, who has been in homeless accommodation, to link in with a bus that passes 2 km from their house. Another email stated that the pupils of three schools will have to walk to a cark park through a greenway and the waste land beyond it - a 15 to 20 minute walk depending on the school. These families understand that school transport is not a door-to-door service. What they do not understand is the logic behind sending children down a dark alleyway out of the view of adults and teachers and into waste land surrounded by bushes and trees as the evenings are starting to darken. This parent has a first-year pupil at the school and in her opinion, this decision is at odds with the commitment given by Government under the climate action plan to reduce journeys and increase the use of public transport as it will force parents back into their cars. The Minister needs to come back into this House with a definitive date as to when this school transport review will be completed and when it will be published.

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