Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this, however short our time is. In her speech, the Minister acknowledged that this is a vital service and pointed out that it is going now since 1967, which is 56 years. During that time it has proven to be a valuable service but completely limited and exclusionary. The Ombudsman for Children in his 2022 submission to the review on transport highlighted a lack of transparency in how distances are calculated. As we know, issues arise every single year and this year is no exception, which is extremely stressful for children and for parents. In 2022 again, the ombudsman highlighted the negative impact on children of delayed decision-making regarding children's access to supports and services. He said that for this reason, decisions affecting a child's access to transport should be timely and made in the shortest possible time so that there is no barrier. I listened carefully to the Minister's speech and re-read it. The review started back in 2021, two years after we declared a climate emergency and a biodiversity emergency. There is no mention of climate change or the possibilities of expanding school transport to comply with our obligations under climate change legislation. I find that extremely worrying. I welcome the positive changes the Government has made over the last number of years but it is tinkering at the system and 56 years later, we deserve a proper review that should be published as soon as possible. The review started back in 2021, over two and a half years ago. We need a recognition that Departments are working together in respect of our climate change obligation.

The Minister tells us how many children are included and so on. I welcome all those figures. However, she does not deal with what has been mentioned by different Deputies such as drivers over 70. She does not deal with the amount of buses that I know are sitting in Galway down near the docks. They are owned by Bus Éireann and sitting there. I have no idea what the potential is for the use of those buses. On the local problems that we all have, some of those have been resolved.

If we are serious about climate change, surely we should look at school transport and how wonderful it could theoretically be, notwithstanding the problems. The demand for a school bus service has illustrated that people do not want to use their cars. They want a bus transport service to schools. Most of the peak time traffic in Galway city is caused by parents bringing their children to school. I myself have been through that. We tried to get concessionary tickets in the past. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes we were not. I was most upset that I or my husband was putting a car on the road to bring children to school about 2 miles away from our house because it simply was not safe to let them go on bicycles. I am appealing to the Minister of State, in the few seconds I have left, to realise the potential of free transport for the country in terms of climate change obligations. We have no choice but to look at it. We talk about the cost of it but we never talk about the cost of not doing it.

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