Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I had hoped the Minister for Education would be in a position to take this Topical Issue, but I was contacted earlier and it was outlined that because of prior commitments, she would not be able to. I cannot overstate the frustration of my constituents in County Clare. They notified me in the very late stages of August about the pilot school transport scheme and what the consequences were for them and their children. Since then, I have made numerous representatives to Bus Éireann and the Minister for Education and have received the same generic response each time, pointing to the fact this was a pilot scheme and that a review will take place.

This is why I am so critical of the term "review". I have said it is a delaying tactic, but in this respect it is preventing that necessary communication from parents directly to the Minister for Education, and even from me as well. I appreciate that the Minister has ensured that representatives from Bus Éireann have engaged with these parents, which has helped to some extent, but serious and almost dangerous decisions have been made, not to mention the cost, which I will come to later. It has been disastrous and I do not want it to be replicated in other rural areas, in particular. From what I understand, we have gone from having private contractors to children having to use public transport, but not enough buses or bus stops were in place. None of it seems to have been planned out. In the first instance, parents were told their children would have to be collected from the side of a dual carriageway. The parents have fought back and done amazing work, protesting and arriving at these bus stops at 7 a.m. before they head off to work, to ensure their children are safe. These issues were not spotted or forecast and, as far as the parents are concerned, that is completely unacceptable.

There has been a lot of backwards and forwards. A total of 280 children have had to wait at a pub car park on a busy main road that has no shelter and this is, as I said, on the side of a dual carriageway, which is completely unacceptable. On 2 September, children had to sit in threes on pairs of seats and stand in stairwells, putting their safety at risk. There was also enormous pushback from parents regarding seatbelts. As they pointed out, the Bus Éireann portal has a graphic making parents aware they need to talk to their children about putting on seatbelts because that is a safety issue, yet a bus that was provided had no seatbelts whatsoever. On top of that, there was the 316 bus, which again had little regard to road safety, and only recently Bus Éireann managed to put on more suitable and safer buses, but there has been no clarification as to whether that is going to be permanent. The parents are not sure whether, as we come into the Christmas period, the bus will be pulled or put in a different location. Being unable to discuss this with the Minister or get her support for those families, children and parents has been disappointing.

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