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

As I said, we all want this to work and to work effectively. I again ask the Minister what impact she sees this review, to be published by the end of the first quarter of this year, having on applications for school students for the 2024-25 school year.

The significant reduction in the number of vehicles on the road will not be lost on anybody who has been in a car during the mid-term break this week. We can make that a permanent feature if we have a fully functional and fully resourced school transport system. There is another aspect to this outside of traffic. Road safety concerns are involved with the high volume of cars that are on the roads around schools. There are also congestion and traffic issues and the general sense of schools being very busy and unwelcoming places sometimes, especially when we know that the demand from parents is there in rural Ireland. We know the difficulties the eligible and concessionary student classifications have caused. Again, what impact does the Minister see this review having on the 2024-25 school year?

See this speech in context