Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

I thank my colleague for sharing her time with me, especially when she has such valuable insight to give and so much to say on the issue.

I wish to raise the issue of the school transport scheme. A key part of the education system that we provide is the ability for our children to get there, particularly those who are living in rural communities. This facilitates parents who might need to work and children living distant from the public bus route. It is a very important component of the service that the Department provides. I know the Minister is new in this role but, unfortunately, what we have seen to date is a year-on-year failure to provide a sufficient bus service for children who need it under the school transport scheme. There are issues across the country, but my county of Wicklow seems to be one of the worst impacted every year when there are difficulties. Oftentimes, literally the night before the students are due to go back to school at the end of August, parents are told there is no bus for them. Two years ago there was a situation whereby some of those students did not get their bus for six, seven or eight months after that point, despite having paid and having secured their tickets. One parent actually had to give up her job because she had to drive her child to school. The impact this had on families was enormous. Will the Minister make sure for the upcoming term that there is sufficient capacity in the system and that we have enough bus drivers and contractors on board? I know there was a review and recommendations were made, but we have not seen them rolled out yet. At the very basic level, we need to make sure there are enough buses, because it causes untold difficulties for students and families when those buses do not show up on time.

There needs to be a speedy resolution to the next-nearest school issue. There are an awful lot of issues with that, whether just by virtue of the fact that a child cannot get a place in their next school, but parental choice also needs to be reflected in that. Indeed, the distances will be reviewed as well, but primarily we need to make sure that there are enough buses.

I wish to raise a few specific issues relating to Wicklow, the first of which I raised yesterday with the Taoiseach. I do not know whether he has had a chance to mention it to the Minister yet, but there is a number of students in Greystones in sixth class who still do not have a place for the end of August. One of these children actually had to stay back last year. The child repeated sixth class because there was no secondary school place for last year. This is the child's second time getting caught up in the demand issue in Greystones. There are also problems in Newtownmountkennedy and around Wicklow town. What I asked yesterday was whether the Minister would send a liaison to talk to the parents. I have a number of names I can provide. The liaison should also be sent to the schools because they are caught in the enrolment process. The child may be No. 100 on the list. There is no way a school will be able to get through that and that administrative issue is the problem. We also need to look at a new school for Newtownmountkennedy because this is playing into part of this issue.

I want to talk very briefly about a fantastic school called New Court School in Bray. It is a special needs school. I was at the launch of its sensory garden a couple of weeks ago. The school had to fundraise for the sensory garden. It has no money and is now going on to another fundraising campaign to fundraise for swings. It is a special school and it has nothing there. The parents and the community do not have the energy to be fundraising for this. I will contact the Minister about this. I would love it if the Minister could give the school and schools like it additional funding to help with those kinds of measures because they are so fundamental to the children who are there. Additionally, the school communities are not the same as many other school communities; they are much smaller and do not have the capacity to raise money in the same manner. I will raise that with the Minister separately.

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