Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate the Minister being here. I think this is an area where a bit of innovation could get us a long way. I saw the Minister was in Noonan's Road recently. I was glad to see that. I hope Government funding for that project will remain strong.

The Minister is familiar with Cork and he may be familiar with the greater Douglas area. It is an area that has seen enormous growth in the past 20 years or so. There is a very large young population in the locality and that has had a big impact on the schools. It was difficult to know how to word the matter I raised in order to get the right response but I hope the Minister will understand what I say. The issue first came up in the context of BusConnects when a number of residents identified the number of cars that were on the road because of school runs.

In the submission I made in October 2022, I made the point that the concentration of schools in the locality is significant and I asked whether it would be worth considering if the wider Douglas-Ballinlough-Turners Cross area could be served by a specific school system on the basis that it might be an alternative fix for the Douglas Road. What we are not talking about is the current school bus system run by the Department of Education where a tender is provided. Neither are we talking about the city services operated by Bus Éireann. I believe there is a need for is a timetabled service to service all of the schools in the Douglas area. We have a particular increase in demand in the morning and evening that would not be reflected during the course of the day. We could not possibly justify additional Bus Éireann services throughout the course of the day. I do not think a single bus connected to an individual school would offer the advantage that combining these schools in a number of routes potentially offers.

I will just give the Minister a sense of it. In a little over 2 km, along a route from Douglas village to Capwell Road, which is a straight line, there are four secondary schools, namely, Douglas Community School, Regina Mundi College, Christ King Girls’ Secondary School and Coláiste Chríost Rí. That amounts to 2,358 students. Going on the census information, while not all students, the vast majority of them are being brought to school in their car. There is great potential if we were able to create a number of routes that might go perhaps three times in the morning between 7.30 a.m. and 8 a.m. One that might start in Maryborough Mount Oval; one that might start at the top of Donnybrook Hill and; one that might start at Frankfield – all coming into the village, taking an enormous number of cars off the road and a reasonable proportion of those young people into the village. That is even before we include the potential for some of the older kids in primary schools, for example, in Gaelscoil na Dúglaise, St. Columba's boys school, St. Columba's girls school, St. Luke's School and Bunscoil Chríost Rí. These schools are all along the same route but would perhaps extend the route slightly further to 2.8 km, and would add another 1,846 students. Altogether, that is 4,204 young people attending school in a very tight area. If we wanted to go a small bit further, there is Scoil Niocláis, Grange, with another 779 students.

I will outline how I imagine this would work. I do not think the National Transport Authority, NTA, has the flexibility to do it at the minute but if it was given the permission and the flexibility to do this, it might be in a position to talk to the schools, identify where their children are coming from, and plan routes that would serve the group of schools that are highly concentrated, and potentially reduce enormously the emissions, traffic, parking and safety issues that can go with the huge congestion caused by cars at the school gates. It is worth considering. It is a new approach that does not exist anywhere currently to my knowledge, but it is well worth considering given the circumstances in the locality.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy Ó Laoghaire. As he is aware, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding for public transport, which means that neither I nor my officials are involved in the planning of public transport services, such as those referred to by the Deputy. The statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public transport services rests with the NTA, which works with the public transport operators, for example Bus Éireann in the Douglas area, which deliver the services and have responsibility for day-to-day operations.

That said, from a policy and funding perspective, I assure the Deputy that I am strongly committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic sustainable mobility options, and public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal.

To support this objective, a funding package of €613 million has been secured for the public service obligation, PSO, and Local Link services. This package includes funding for the continuation of the 20% fare reduction on PSO services, the extension of the young adult card on both PSO and commercial bus services to include 24- and 25-year-olds, and the continuation of the 90-minute fare until the end of this year. Funding has also been secured to support the continued roll-out of new and enhanced bus and rail services this year.

In Cork, Bus Éireann is working with the NTA to examine what steps can be taken to improve service provision in the city and counter the impact of issues such as traffic congestion. The NTA has advised my Department that work is currently ongoing with BusConnects Cork, including the commencement of preliminary design work for core bus corridors in Cork. Significant improvements are being made to the bus network in Douglas, including a new orbital route 14, running from Cork University Hospital to Little Island via Douglas, and a new route 46 to Passage via Carrigmahon, and enhancements to service on other alignments.

According to the NTA, this will give excellent accessibility to and from schools in and around the area, while also providing benefits to a wide range of other users. School demand will be taken into account when setting timetables and capacity. To be clear, in line with its public transport remit, the NTA has no plans to operate a dedicated school service in the area. It is the Department of Education which has responsibility for the school transport scheme. I want to repeat that I am strongly committed to improving public transport services throughout the country and to piloting new transport initiatives for people of all ages and abilities, including students. This is especially important to affect a modal shift from the private car to public transport to meet our climate and sustainable development targets. The Deputy might be interested to learn that my Department and the Department of Education are currently investigating the potential for better integration between the existing school transport scheme and public transport services in rural Ireland. This also aligns with the recommendations contained with the school transport scheme review around the integration of public and school transport to meet our climate action plan targets. The ultimate aim is to support a co-ordinated delivery of services and to maximise the number of sustainable trips to and from the schools. A steering group comprised of my Department, the Department of Education, the NTA and Bus Éireann is currently finalising potential locations for these integration pilots. In conclusion, I wish to reassure the Deputy that the Department of Transport, the NTA and the operators are working to ensure the optimised deployment of resources across the public transport network to match changing passenger demand patterns, including in the Douglas area of Cork city.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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The key sentence in the Minister's response is:

To be clear, in line with public transport remit, the NTA has no plans to operate a dedicated school service in the area. It is the Department of Education which has responsibility for the school transport scheme.

That is the problem which prevents something like this happening. No one really has the flexibility, the interest or the ability to do so. While the scheme would be better off in the Department of Transport, that is another day of work. The Department of Education runs a scheme in which it tenders and creates a route for a school, if it has enough children who require school transport, according to where those children live and so on. That is not going to meet the needs that are being outlined here. It will not operate that significant shift. A lot of these children would not qualify because they are too close to the school or it might not be the nearest school. I have just identified that there are four schools in a quick run. It might not even be the second-nearest school even though it might be within 2.5 km of where they live, for whatever reason. I believe the NTA would conceivably be interested in something like this but it does not actually have the ability to do so.

The Minister said that the NTA has no plans to operate a dedicated school service in the area. We are talking about creating a timetabled service that would serve a suburb, including several of the schools, at a time of major increased demand. This can be seen already in the Bus Éireann services but they are not as responsive to the particular need that arises early in the morning and in the late afternoon as the schools close. They are not as responsive to that need as they should or could be. Consequently, people are being brought to school in their cars.

There is huge potential here. I am looking for the Minister to encourage the NTA and to say to it that it has a bit of flexibility and scope to explore this with the stakeholders, which are primarily the particular schools, obviously, to see whether something is possible. The Department of Education is not going to do this. I do not believe it even has the option to potentially explore this. It is only the NTA. This is about a timetabled service that would operate in an area, rather than directly to schools. I ask the Minister to give the NTA flexibility to explore this with the stakeholders as something significant is possible here.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I am familiar with the problem. I was in Douglas last Friday, as it happens. The Deputy is right; a large amount of the morning rush-hour traffic is children being driven to school. People see the difference between the summer period when the schools are not open and the winter period. It makes a dramatic difference. If that 20% or 30% of school traffic can be taken out, it frees up the traffic for everyone and is better for the kids and the families. Absolutely, we need to provide better services.

As well as the new 14 and 46 bus services, there are, of course, the 206 and 207 routes serving Douglas as well. I was talking to Bus Éireann last week specifically about Cork bus services. Going back to when we had the earlier debate, we have an issue. We are looking to recruit 50 additional drivers in Cork and additional mechanics as well. However, the real problem in Cork is that our buses are getting stuck in traffic. A regular scheduled Bus Éireann Cork city service may serve a lot of these schools' needs. You would try to ensure the timetable is rostered so that you are picking up when that demand is at its highest. The biggest problem in Cork is that our buses are stuck in traffic. No matter how many drivers or mechanics there are, if the bus is stuck sitting in gridlock, then the whole service will not work.

The most important thing we need to do in Cork, in my mind, is deliver the BusConnects project. My sense is that it has broad support now. There was a lot of opposition in Douglas to one of the routes but my sense is that it has broad support. As I was saying at the Oireachtas environment committee yesterday, we have to be very quick because, at this point of consensus, we could lose it if we are waiting another two or three years for further consultation, assessment, planning or development, as has happened in Dublin where there was too long of a gap between the original proposal and the delivery. That is the most important development. The Deputy is right; if the Department of Education was to step up and say that it wants a new route here, that would be its business. I would very much welcome it but I do not expect it. I expect us to improve the quality of bus service for everyone in Cork and in doing so, provide a service for these schools as well.