Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

It was not solely my office that was inundated. I am sure the Minister of State's own office and, indeed, all constituency offices across the country were inundated with similar issues.

Having listened to other Deputies on this topic, I am left wondering how it is such a big problem every year. It seems to catch us almost by surprise. Here we are, school buses are needed and people need places. Unfortunately, it repeats itself all the time. We get the same calls. We know we should have bus drivers over 70. Everybody seems to say that, yet nobody seems able to put it in place and we are here facing the same questions.

Some of the biggest issues we have are, as people near the start of the school year, they have their uniforms bought, their schoolbooks ready and their bus tickets ready to go. Unfortunately, they are then told - many were told only a week or two before school returned - that there will be no buses available. This causes huge difficulty for families. It has huge implications. People were ready to travel to work sure that their kids would be brought to school by a bus. In my constituency, they might have been commuting to Dublin and elsewhere and believed they would be able to drop their kids off at a spot at, for example, Johnstown Bridge at 7.30 a.m. or Clane at 7.15 a.m. However, they were then told at the last minute that they wold not be able to do so and that different plans wold have to be made. This is not good enough.

Multiple families have reached out to me to say they were told in early August that their children had received tickets servicing areas between Maynooth and Kilcock, areas outside Naas, only to be told the week after the children returned to school that the bus service would not be running. When questioned on this, Bus Éireann told one constituent that it had trouble setting up transport on some routes, including that of the constituent. It stated that a number of difficulties had arisen in some localities with a small number of contracted services, including the service intended for the children of my constituent. It stated that in some cases, those difficulties had arisen due to a lack of driver or contractor availability. That is not good enough, considering that people had sought those routes multiple months earlier. Another constituent received a response outlining that if a family was advised, through direct contact or displayed on their online account, that there was no capacity to issue tickets for their children, they could be assured that Bus Éireann had exhausted all avenues to accommodate pupils. It went on to state that it was not open to Bus Éireann to create additional capacity or engage additional vehicles.

I have a major question arising from the responses received. Bus Éireann knew in early June the exact number of pupils who would need school bus tickets for the following year. If it is not up to Bus Éireann, who can create additional capacity or engage additional vehicles? Is it up to the parents themselves? Is it up to us, because we are the ones who are asked questions? It is not. It is up to Bus Éireann. For next year, I ask that Bus Éireann engage continually with those contractors over the summer. New schools are not built in that timeframe. Kids are not going to school in hugely different numbers in different areas. Surely there can be a mechanism whereby when the leaving certificate examinations and primary school years have finished towards the end of June, we can be ready to start again at the end of August. Perhaps through more communication, we could bring things to a better space.

I know the Minister of State has been listening. I am sure he has been hearing these sorts of comments in his office. I thank him for the time to allow my voice and the voices of the constituents who put the matter to me in recent weeks to be heard.

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