Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I know the Minister of State wants to hear about issues our constituents are facing so he can fix them and I appreciate that. I also appreciate that there has been an increase in the number of students accessing the service and most families have a positive experience but too many do not and for those households, it is causing havoc. A total of 11 students are travelling 10 km from Tyrrelstown, Hollywoodrath to Ériu Community College in Hantsfield. The local secondary school is full. In two years' time, Ériu Community College under the direction of the Department will move to Hollywoodrath but there is no bus to accommodate those students for whom this will become their local school and there is no commitment to accommodate the parents in Hantsfield who in good faith sent their children to a local school that is now being moved from one catchment area to an entirely different one. It seems to have fallen into bureaucratic purgatory. Can we please sort it out?

The system works on the basis of the first available school but ethos and whether it is co-educational must also be taken into consideration in modern Ireland. We cannot say on one hand that we recognise the importance of diversity when it comes to school ethos and then limit that choice because of bureaucratic sticking points.

Children attending Catherine McAuley National School are already travelling outside their area to attend the school because we do not have reading classes in Dublin West. They have missed four weeks of school because the service was pulled at the last minute. Parents have been told that their bus will collect their children at 6.45 a.m. As a parent, I am saying that this is not on. That is not a solution for these families. The Minister of State's office is extremely helpful for which I thank it but I ask his intervention in finding workable solutions. This system is built to provide 175,000 tickets, which is to be commended, but it is a black-and-white system that needs to recalibrate to work for families and modern Ireland.

At the centre of that, to provide that service we need to rectify the driver's licences for the over-70s so we can increase the number of buses available.

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