Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

To follow up on my colleague's comments, there is an issue about accountability and responsibility. It is not the NTA that deals with the school buses; it is Bus Éireann that has been given that job. If Bus Éireann is not doing the job, representatives here would like to know why, who is accountable and who is going to be fired from their job for being incompetent. If it is an issue of supply, the competence issue goes back to the Government. As others have said, we should be able to make decisions on 80% to 90% of bus provision in July, or even in May because the offers of places will often have gone out by that stage. In built-up urban areas like my constituency, there are parents who must wait until the second week of September before their children are offered a place. Dublin, north Kildare, Wicklow, Cork and Galway are the crunch points for the special educational needs students. On areas around the rest of the country, my colleagues will be more articulate and knowledgeable about what needs to be done. I definitely think there needs to be accountability and better planning.

While we have a resources issue, there is also that of the drivers over 70. I am going to drone on about this because this has been raised over multiple years and raised today by multiple elected representatives. A taxi driver can drive up to the age of 75 but is not allowed, under contract, to drop kids to a school. As others have mentioned, someone with a private coach-hire service can bring a bunch of kids somewhere but not under the contracted service. That does not make sense at all. We have heard before that this may be reviewed by the Government under the programme for Government, but the question is one of how long it takes to review whether someone medically fit and competent to drive and carry people of all ages should be able to do so. It should just direct Bus Éireann to make it so.

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