Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. There is probably very little I can say that is going be news to the Minister of State at this point. Many Members have covered, quite comprehensively, the structural flaws facing the transport scheme as it stands. It is probably difficult to comprehend any sort of acknowledgement that the scheme is getting better when it is a problem that the Minister of State and the Minister have inherited. This is a problem of the previous Government's making. When the Government announced free school transport for all without having the ability to back that up with capacity or the infrastructure to deliver it, what happened was that demand was created. Other Members have spoken about the level of increase in the use of tickets over the past couple of years. That is simply because, overnight, an announcement was made that there would be free transport for everybody. That led to children who had been using the system day in and day out for years lost their tickets to those who successfully applied for tickets and who have not used them. I cannot understate the frustration of people whose children do not get tickets and who, when they go to collect them from school, see ghost buses that are either half or one third empty driving by because other students are not using their bus tickets to the extent that their children would.

If there is a possibility of carrying out some form of check of the scheme, I implore the Minister of State to do that. If people are not using their tickets, there are many others who will use them. We must do better. The Minister of State knows that. The Government knows that the system is deeply flawed. This is the manifestation of making announcements without the ability to back them up.

Other speakers listed town after town. It is safe to assume that every school community in Kildare has been affected by this issue. We have communities right throughout the county that are impacted. I am not going list them off.

See this speech in context