Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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Question 14: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his attention had been drawn to delays in processing applications for children attending special needs schools and who want to avail of public transport; and the average time taken to process these types of applications. [34869/11]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Under the terms of my Department's school transport scheme, a pupil with special educational needs is eligible for school transport if he or she is attending the nearest recognised mainstream school, special class, special school or a unit, that is or can be resourced to meet the child's special educational needs under Department of Education and Skills criteria. While school transport applications for children with special educational needs are processed as expeditiously as possible, I understand that in instances where a new service is required, due to procurement procedures, it may take a number of weeks before a service can be established. If the Deputy has a particular case in mind, I will be happy to talk to him about it.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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There have been several cases brought to my attention, probably due to the new school year. Has the system become more convoluted? I was speaking to someone in Bus Éireann who told me that the tendering process has become more complicated and agreed that the situation was less than satisfactory. One child with special needs was waiting three months for the paperwork to be done. Management at the school thought it had been sent and the SENO had looked after it. If that parent had kept the child out of school for three months, the welfare board would be calling around.

There seems to be a difficulty with the system itself. I can give the Minister some examples of this. Three months is too long a period to keep a child with special needs out of school.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I mentioned earlier that I have asked for a code of practice to be introduced for the provision of school transport to children with special educational needs. I hope that will help to expedite the process. However, I wish to outline the process whereby a child with special educational needs secures a school transport service. The application is completed by the parent and signed by the parent, the school principal and the special educational needs organiser prior to or at the time of first enrolment. Those applications are forwarded by the SENO to the school transport section. Bus Éireann is then requested to provide a report on the distance the child resides from the school of enrolment and the availability of a transport service. Where a suitable service exists, the child may be added to this service. This is a relatively straightforward process and should not take too long. It takes considerably longer to establish a new service, as this may involve the contracting of an individual taxi, which must be tendered by Bus Éireann. Other issues such as the need for wheelchair-accessible vehicles, special transport arrangements or an escort - which is the case for many children with special needs - and Garda vetting of drivers add to the length of time required to set up a new service. Parents may also be offered a special transport grant to take their children to school themselves. Each case is different and presents a unique set of complexities which must be addressed before a transport service can be finalised. Setting up a completely new service is a pretty convoluted and complicated process. However, if the Deputy knows of individual cases that he feels have taken an inordinately long time to process, I will undertake to examine these.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I can understand that a new service takes some time to be established, but what is an acceptable length of time in the Minister of State's opinion? Is three months far too long? It is from my point of view. I can understand there are difficulties with resources and so on and that new services may have to be set up, but in the case with which I am familiar, there were five children in the same school having difficulties, and that was just one school. There are other schools, I presume, that are having similar difficulties. All I am asking is whether the Minister of State can investigate, through his officials, what the main difficulty is for Bus Éireann or whoever else is involved and whether there is a way of fast-tracking the establishment of such services.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Following on from the publication of the code of practice, I will undertake to discuss this with my officials. My sense is that as much streamlining as possible has already been carried out. There is a significant amount of tendering for unique, tailored services responding to the needs of individual children, but the tendering process, by law, is a pretty convoluted one, and there are certain timeframes and periods of assessment that simply must be complied with. They are feeding the delays in the process and there is nothing we can do about that. I will undertake to liaise again with my officials to see whether any further streamlining can be achieved.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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On the issue of children with special needs, not only with regard to public transport requests, the Minister will be aware that we lost five special needs assistants in our local school before the summer. The parents of the children affected and public representatives on the ground have not been able to meet the special educational needs organiser to discuss this situation, which has been ongoing since the month of June. We have written, e-mailed and made requests, which have gone from pillar to post. We are now approaching the month of December. I find it unacceptable that someone in the public service is that unavailable to such a large number of people to discuss such a critical issue. These are people who are dealing, unfortunately, with children with special needs, which is distressing enough. They find the reduction in resources distressing, and not being able to meet the SENO is adding to that distress.

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I agree that this is completely unacceptable. If the Deputy liaises with our Department we will undertake to have a meeting organised as soon as possible.