Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

Obviously, the Minister of State is hearing a lot of stories today about the failures within the school transport scheme. Every year at this time of the year, we sound like a broken record relaying these stories to the Minister of the day. As my colleague, Deputy Wall, relayed, it seems this year is the worst year we have seen in a long time.

I wish to relay the story of Jade Black and her son, Rocco, to the Minister of State. Rocco is 16 and attends St. Michael’s House. They live in the north inner city in the middle of my constituency of Dublin Central. Four days before returning to school at the end of August, they were told the school transport provider was gone. There was no proper explanation. “Sorry for your inconvenience” was the phrasing in the email. The person driving the taxi for this child had been there since 2018. Jade is able to drive her son every day to St. Michael’s House. She also has to take another child with her, who lives close by. That child is reliant on a wheelchair, but the car cannot take a wheelchair, resulting in the child having to go through the indignity of getting into a car without her wheelchair. While she can walk a few steps, she has to go through that every day. We are into our fourth week and there are no notions as to when we are going to see any change. What I wish to convey to the Minister of State is that Jade, after 17 years out of the workforce, was due to start a job on 1 September. That mother has had to put off starting that job because of the failures of the State and the failure of the school transport scheme.

Last week, I brought it up with the Taoiseach and he was talking about work being the greatest way out of poverty, but this woman cannot work because of the failure of the State. We need to see real action and an explanation. We need that service reinstated as soon as possible for the children attending St. Michael’s House, and indeed for all the other special schools around the country.

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