John Cregan (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)
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I wholeheartedly welcome the improvements in safety standards introduced during the summer months for all students on school buses. Safety measures are of paramount importance to our children travelling on school buses twice daily. However, I raise this matter to highlight the difficulties experienced by a group of first year students who cannot avail of school transport. Many of my constituents and their children are experiencing great distress, frustration and uncertainty because of the withdrawal of school transport from 38 students attending the Salesian College in Pallaskenry. When I tabled the motion, the same problem existed in Askeaton. Thankfully that issue was resolved.

I will outline my understanding of the sequence of events since the early 1980s when the Department of Education found it necessary to grant full eligibility to students who had no choice but to take up places in Pallaskenry and Askeaton second level colleges because they were unable to secure places in second level colleges within the city catchment area. This remained the case up to 2001 when a letter issued from the Department of Education and Science that the status quo would remain in place until a review of the catchment areas could take place. No such review has taken place. A central applications system was introduced for the 2004 school year to ensure pupils would be given their choice of places in secondary schools and vocational colleges in the city catchment area. Transport was then to be withdrawn. However, I understand this decision was postponed.

In 2005 schools expressed concern at the withdrawal of transport and meetings took place. I understand no decisions were made in the absence of the central applications system finalising its business. Schools were notified in late June and parents were notified in late July. Unfortunately from the parents' point of view children had been enrolled, uniforms purchased and I cannot condone the timing of the notification to parents.

Unfortunately we have now reached an impasse. I can see only one way to resolve the issue, which is by dialogue. I have never seen a dispute resolved without dialogue and negotiation. I appeal to all concerned to step back from the brink in the interest of the children involved and find a solution acceptable to all sides. I am asking for a meeting to be convened involving all interested parties — Bus Éireann, the VEC transport liaison officer, Department officials, parents' representatives, school representatives, if necessary, and the Minister or her representatives. I believe a solution can and should be found to resolve the issue.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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I agree with Deputy Cregan on the safety matter. I welcome the Minister of State. That representatives from three different parties have raised this matter indicates its importance. If we were not here we would be at a meeting in Ballybrown GAA club to discuss the matter. We have attended such meetings each Wednesday in recent weeks. I agree with Deputy Cregan that we need to resolve the issue through dialogue. However, the parents who enrolled their children in Pallaskenry believed that the status quo would remain because of the letter sent out in 2001 when the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, was the Minister of State with responsibility for school transport.

In May I received a reply to a parliamentary question which indicated no decision had been made and that it would be decided in the context of the school places issue in Limerick city. That issue is central in that insufficient places exist on that side of the city. While it can be said that places exist in Limerick city, there is no logic in parents having to send their children to the other side of the city when they could be sent a few miles out the road to Pallaskenry, which is their choice of school. There is not availability in terms of the choices parents made last year and the previous year. More than 50% of the children at school in Pallaskenry are from outside the catchment area.

In my role as education spokesperson, I am aware of what goes on in other parts of the country. Extra buses have been provided in these cases and children outside catchment boundaries, in some cases in numbers as large as those involved in Pallaskenry, have been facilitated in recent weeks. I ask the Minister of State to re-open this issue because there has been a suggestion that somehow it has been decided and cannot be re-opened. In the interests of parents it must be re-opened. The Minister of State should listen to some of the stories we have heard about parents who were losing earnings, who were trying to return from night work and get their children to school, and who are now car-pooling. They cannot go on like this much longer. They are determined to send their children to the Salesian college in Pallaskenry and they know they cannot get their children into city schools. They were not able to do so in the past year. I dealt with many parents who now have their children in the Salesian college in Pallaskenry who had nowhere to send their children in the city.

This is an issue of catchment as well as one about not having sufficient places in the city catchment. The Minister of State must find a resolution in the context of that overall situation. This is not simply a matter of the children being able to go to school within their own catchment area. The demographics have changed greatly in the Limerick area since 1967, when the boundaries were drawn up. The city has extended greatly on the western side in areas such as Raheen, Mungret and Clarinagh. All children in those areas are outside the catchment area for Pallaskenry. They are in the city catchment, but there is no logic in their parents having to drive right across the city traffic to the other side of Limerick if they could have a school bus which would bring them to the Salesian college in Pallaskenry. For many reasons, that makes much more sense. I ask the Minister of State to please resolve this issue.

Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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I support my colleagues in asking for a review of this issue and an understanding of the special problem which has arisen with regard to Pallaskenry and the catchment area of the old Mungret college, which closed in the early 1970s. Children who live close to Pallaskenry are now in the city catchment area. Because of the difficulties with regard to schools in the city, parents have sent their children to the Salesian college in Pallaskenry. The siblings of those children are not now being allowed the facility while their brothers and sisters are being allowed it. I ask the Minister of State to understand the situation of parents who over a long period of time planned that their children would attend the college in Pallaskenry.

I raised this question on 5 February last. I will quote from the Adjournment Debate in which I participated on 5 May. At that time the Minister of State informed me that the continued provision of full school transport for the pupils and new applicants for school transport was being reviewed. That is on the record of the Dáil. On 20 February 2001 the Salesian college received a letter stating:

The position regarding the need to transport pupils out of the Limerick city centre to the Salesian college is that the status quo should be maintained pending a review of the present arrangements and the catchment boundary areas. You will appreciate that this will involve extensive discussion with the relevant interested parties.

That was the guarantee given then, that nothing would happen until the catchment areas were reviewed. The letter confirming that pupils arriving in the Limerick city catchment area, enrolling for the first time, would not get a school transport service from that area, was dated 30 June. Telling pupils on 30 June, who have enrolled in a school and bought their uniforms, that they must switch schools is not acceptable. The school nearest those pupils is the Crescent comprehensive college. That school is in their catchment area but they have no chance of getting places there.

A letter sent to the Department of Education and Science by the chief executive officer of the County Limerick VEC, who is dealing with the matter, states:

Taking cognisance of the seriousness of the matter and taking into account the various circumstances of the situation, including the lateness of the decision which was communicated during the school holiday period, I urge and reiterate with the greatest temerity that the matter be revisited with a view to deferring the decision.

This letter came from a highly respected senior official in the County Limerick VEC, one of the most respected people in public service in the Limerick area.

The Minister of State will talk about costs, but they are minimal in terms of the total education budget. This is a very serious situation for the families involved and for the pupils. Can the Minister of State understand the pressure on those kids? They do not know what will happen to them.

I am confused. The Minister of State tells us he has the agreement of the Taoiseach and of the Minister for Education and Science. For years we sought a Cabinet Minister in the Limerick area. We now have one. The former Minister, Deputy Des O'Malley, delivered a lot to Limerick city. The former Minister, Deputy Tom O'Donnell, was one of the best Ministers we ever had. When he was Minister, Deputy Noonan totally revamped the Limerick regional hospital. Yet the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, cannot deliver a bus.

Síle de Valera (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputies Cregan, O'Sullivan and Neville for their contributions. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter and to outline my position on school transport to the Salesian college in Pallaskenry and Scoil Mhuire in Askeaton, County Limerick.

One of the main objects of the school transport scheme is to provide a basic level of service for children who live long distances from schools and who might otherwise experience difficulty in attending regularly. There are about 138,000 primary and post-primary pupils using the school transport scheme on a regular basis. The allocation for school transport in 2005 is €116.533 million, an increase of 6% on last year's out-turn. Some 30% of the allocation will be expended this year on transport costs and grant aid for children with special needs, who represent about 6% of the overall number of children carried each day.

For the purposes of post-primary education provision, the country is divided into catchment areas, each of which has its own post-primary centre. Under the terms of the post-primary school transport scheme, a pupil is eligible for school transport if he or she resides 4.8 kilometres or three miles or more, from the post-primary centre in the catchment area in which he or she lives. A post-primary centre is not necessarily a school building. It is usually a central point in the catchment area to which the distance from home is measured.

Eligible pupils who wish to attend post-primary schools in another catchment area may be allowed transport on school services from within the catchment boundary of the school being attended, subject to there being room available on the school transport service and to there being no additional cost to the State. Pupils are responsible for getting to the nearest school bus service within that catchment area. An eligible pupil who is approved for catchment boundary transport is not guaranteed school transport for the duration of his or her education at that centre. As a concessionary measure, continued transport will depend on the availability of space on the school service to that centre each school term.

A large number of pupils who reside in the Limerick city catchment area have been provided with full transport facilities to the Salesian college in Pallaskenry because of difficulties encountered in previous years in securing placements in certain schools in Limerick city. A lesser number of such pupils were provided with full transport to Scoil Mhuire, Askeaton, for the same reason. However, as a result of the introduction of the central applications facility for the allocation of places in Limerick city post-primary schools for the current school year, it became apparent that there were enough places in the city for all applicants from the catchment. Every child who applied for a place got one and 95% received offers within their first three preferences.

In the circumstances, it was decided to discontinue the practice of offering a special service to new catchment boundary pupils travelling to Pallaskenry and Askeaton. Existing passengers were reassured that they would have a place for the rest of their schooling but new applicants were told they would have to be treated in the same way as catchment boundary applicants in other parts of the country. Catchment boundary transport will continue to be available to pupils enrolling in the Salesian college in Pallaskenry and in Scoil Mhuire, Askeaton, subject to the terms of the scheme. I do not propose to reverse my decision which was made following a full assessment of all relevant factors.

On the issue of catchment boundaries, there have been calls for local and general reviews of these boundaries to enable pupils to be accommodated with school transport to attend a school of their choice. The catchment boundaries have their origins in the establishment of free post-primary education in the late 1960s. For planning purposes, the country was divided into geographic districts, each with several primary schools feeding into a post-primary centre with one or more post-primary schools. The intention was that these defined districts would facilitate the orderly planning of school provision and accommodation needs. They also facilitated the provision of a national school transport service, enabling children from remote areas to get to their nearest school.

While the service has been developed over the years to take account of linguistic and denominational considerations in the matter of school choice, it was never the intention that such choice would be unlimited. Clearly, the cost of operating such a scheme would be unsustainable, especially in the context of competing demands, including the major safety programme we are implementing at present.

It is reasonable for parents to exercise educational choice. However, expectation as to the extent to which choice can be facilitated must be tempered with realism. A review of catchment boundaries may be appropriate where, for example, a new post-primary school is established in an area where previously there was none or, conversely, where a "sole provider" school closes due to declining enrolment. However, to revise boundaries to provide school transport for pupils to their school of choice would not be appropriate and it is not my intention to undertake such reviews. Any other approach would make it impossible to operate the school transport service on a cost effective basis and could well give rise to additional costs related to additional teacher posts and accommodation.

I thank the Deputies for referring to the work being done on the safety programme. It has been an expensive programme and I thank them for their acknowledgement of that. However, with regard to the issue of Askeaton and Pallaskenry which is under discussion this evening, it saddens me to hear from Deputy Neville that people are confused about the situation. I have never attempted to play politics with this issue. I have always been up front about my decision. I accept that the Deputy is not accusing me of being duplicitous but I am saddened that some who are not present might be using this situation as a political manoeuvre. If that is so, it is sad.

I have not added to the confusion. I have stated where I stand to the parents when I met them, on more than one occasion. The confusion does not emanate from me and I believe the Deputy appreciates that.