Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As sure as there will be an overcrowding and trolley crisis in our hospitals this winter, which will unfortunately be the same as it is every year, there was a school bus capacity crisis this year, which is the same every year. It is not a new issue; it is a Government issue. The Government and the Minister know this but still they allow these problems to persist. Now and as always, the Government has failed to plan for the new school year properly, and this is despite repeated commitments from Ministers, past and present, that the issues would be rectified in time for the following year. There are households with both parents often working and households with one or no car that have no way of getting their children to school.

The reality of rural Ireland is that many children cannot walk or cycle to school and I want to highlight one particular case, which is one of many, regarding 16 secondary school students travelling from Collon to Ardee in Louth, who were all denied places. I made several representations on their behalves to Bus Éireann and its responses were not positive. I then contacted the Minister's office and my email was acknowledged but there was no follow-up from her office. I then contacted the Minister’s office again, prior to school resuming, to highlight the stress and anxiety parents were suffering the closer they got to the new school year starting, with the lack of viable alternative options open to them. The response I got was on how the scheme is run, ignoring all of the points made in my correspondence, and most importantly, offering nothing to those parents or their children. It was a head-in-the-sand response from a head-in-the-sand Government. You cannot just add more money and say everything is sorted; you need to attract new drivers, retain drivers and allow drivers who are 70 or over and who are medically cleared to continue to drive.

I want to concur the statement of my colleague, Deputy Stanley, about the need for local knowledge and co-ordination, with an identifiable person having direct contact with local school and bus operators to bridge the information gap which is behind most of the chaos every year. It needs to be managed correctly and you cannot say it is managed correctly when the same problems reoccur year after year. The fact that the review of school transport has been dragged on for two and a half years speaks volumes about the Government's lack of oversight, sense of emergency and tact in this issue.

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