Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

Year in, year out in Wicklow we have problems with the school bus service. It usually happens two or three days before school starts, when the emails start to arrive from Bus Éireann to tell parents - who have already paid for and secured tickets for their children and made plans on the basis that they will have a way to get to school - that, for whatever reason, there is no bus available. This is usually because there is no bus driver, the contractor has pulled the bus or that a bus could not be secured in the first place. It is always left until the very last minute and this leaves families absolutely reeling and trying to get on top of how they will get their children to school.

I have had constituents who could not go to work. Others had to leave work or could not take up job offers because the school bus service in Wicklow was so bad. It was March of last year before some of the routes were up and running. The school year was nearly over at that stage. This happens year in, year out; it is not a new problem.

When this issue was raised previously, we were told there was going to be a review of the school bus system and that all aspects of it would be looked at. I had a look at the review that was carried out. There are three phases in the report. It seems that phase three is the one that applies. In that context, the report states, "Phase 3 involves an examination of issues around eligibility criteria, scheme performance, scheme expenditure and the potential for scheme integration." Someone in the Department forgot to complete the report because there is no mention of scheme performance at any stage in the document. It is mentioned once in the introduction, on page 5, and is not mentioned anywhere ever again. In the context of a scheme with which there are so many problems, surely performance and how the scheme currently operates should have been the number one thing the Department looked at. The Department should surely have stated that if it wanted to make matters better, it needed to identify the problems and challenges that exist. It would appear that this was never done.

I am going to put my constituency hat on and say that Wicklow is one of those counties that is particularly impacted every year. Will the Minister of State-----

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