Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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It is more than 6 km from Kildare town to the Curragh Camp. No matter what road is taken, and even the motorway can be taken, there are no footpaths. The majority of the three or four routes are winding country roads, with little visibility and a lot of danger for anyone who might want to walk them. I will come back to this.

I want to discuss Curragh Community College. This is, and has always been, a fine school, but its time is coming to an end. Even the wonderful principal and the board of management say that the school is not fit for purpose. At present, there are a lot of dangers in the school. This school also has its buckets and its fire dangers, as has previously been discussed. I want to raise the issue of the need for a school bus from Kildare town to the Curragh for the next couple of years. Why I am raising this is that, thankfully, after a ten-year wait, a new secondary school, which will have the name of the Curragh Community College, is to be built in Kildare town. Planning permission was obtained this year and it is proceeding, according to replies I have received from the Minister for Education and Youth. There will be 300 students going from Kildare town, the Curragh and the surrounding areas to the Curragh Community College this September. The problem is that a lot of the students coming from Kildare town have no way of getting there. Many of their parents have been carpooling but that causes problems as well. As I said earlier, there are no footpaths on the roads leading to the college.

A new school is being built in Kildare town. Many of the pupils who will attend the school are already living in Kildare town. When the new school is built, students from The Plains, Melitta Road and other estates in the area will have to walk 200 yards to the new school. However, they are currently 6 km away. They have come to me and other public representatives in Kildare South and we have asked the Department to put on a school bus route in the interim while the new school is being built. Lo and behold, the reply we got was that the pupils were not going to their nearest school. How can they go to their nearest school? At the moment, the school that is there, Kildare Town Community School, is oversubscribed. The only option for many new students in Kildare town is to attend the Curragh Community College. This is the conundrum. This is the only possibility for them to get a secondary education. As I said, within two to three years, or however long the new building takes, they will be able to walk the 200 or 300 yards on safe footpaths to the new school. However, in the interim, they have been told that they are not attending their nearest school. I hope the Minister of State will have some good news for me. I ask him to provide a bus service for those students for the next two to three years so that the parents and the new pupils attending the Curragh Community College can actually get to the school for those couple of years while we wait for the new school building. I hope that the Department sees sense on this. It is a very sensible request by the parents of children attending the Curragh Community College.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I am responding on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, who has the privilege of taking over the issue of school transport, which he is absolutely delighted about. He is very reasonable and I know that he will give this consideration. On the Minister of State's behalf, I welcome the opportunity to respond on this matter.

The school transport scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education and Youth. Bus Éireann has advised that children residing in Kildare town are not eligible for the Curragh Community College as they are not attending their nearest post-primary school centre. They further advise that there is no existing service from Kildare town to this school. In cases where families have applied to attend their nearest schools with regard to ethos and language, and have been advised by the school authorities that these schools are full, the Department will consider if the pupil is eligible for the next nearest school. While the closest schools may be full to capacity at present, each family must supply evidence that an application for enrolment was made within the deadline specified by the schools and a letter from each of the school authorities confirming that the school was full. This information should be submitted to the school transport section of the Department of Education and Youth for consideration. Contact details for the section can be found on the Department’s website.

As the Deputy may be aware, a minimum of ten eligible children residing in a distinct locality, as determined by Bus Éireann, who have applied and paid or entered their medical card details, are required, before consideration may be given to the establishment or retention of school transport services, provided this can be done within reasonable cost limits.

The Bus Éireann family portal has now closed for applications and payments. Bus Éireann will now assess all applications and payments received and plan for routes and services for the 2025-2026 school year. Routes may be altered or extended depending on the number and location of eligible children who will be availing of school transport for the following school year.

Once routes have been finalised, Bus Éireann will assign tickets for each school transport service. Tickets will begin to issue in mid-July and will continue to issue during July and August. Families who are unsuccessful in obtaining a seat will be notified via email and a refund will issue. Payments or medical card details submitted after the deadline date will be deemed to be late. A late submission of payment or medical card details may mean that a seat is not available.

There is a job of work in terms of the Department assessing the levels of interest and applications that have come in. There is the specification requirement of ten eligible students to establish a route. I take the Deputy's point regarding this specific case in the Kildare town and the Curragh. It is great for Kildare town that the new Curragh school will be built there. Perhaps a solution should be considered in the interim. The Minister of State's door is open. If there needs to be a workaround or some type of interim solution, he will at least discuss this with the Deputy and work with the Department on it. I have set out the requirements for establishing new school bus routes.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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The good news is that at the moment we have 20 pupils, double Bus Éireann's requirement. There is potentially another 12 students so 32 students could avail of this. These students are residing in Kildare town, some of them less than 500 yards away from the site of the very welcome, proposed new school that will be built over the next two to three years. That will accommodate 1,000 pupils. At the moment, almost 300 students are attending the Curragh Community College. I take on board what the Minister of State has said and I will reach out to the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, again.

We have the names. Some of the pupils and families are into their second or third year of trying to get this bus service. The numbers seem to suggest they have enough to request a bus under the guidelines the Minister of State referred to tonight and which I received previously from Bus Éireann. I hope common sense will prevail. This is an interim, short-term measure. We will prevent a number of cars travelling those 6 km if we can put on a school bus for those potentially 30 students. I will contact the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, again to ask him to reconsider. I will provide the names and everything the Minister of State has given me tonight. I ask the Minister of State to have a word with the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, to say exactly as I have said tonight, that this is a distinct possibility. I agree with the Minister of State that this is a special case. I have spoken before about special school buses. It is a yearly topic for me but this needs to happen for many people who will enjoy a purpose-built school less than 500 yards from their homes but it will not happen for two to three years. I hope the Department sees sense and provides that school transport.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I spoke in jest about the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, taking on the brief of school transport. He is very experienced in this. He has been around the block, was a backbencher for a while and battled in similar situations to the one the Deputy has presented. He understands the need for that but there are parameters and guidelines he has to work within. The requirement is for ten eligible students. One could present a case for 100 concessionary students. It is about whether that would suffice for establishing a new route. That will have to be worked out. Because it is an interim solution and many students will eventually go to the newly built school in Kildare, perhaps that is an angle that could be worked on. It is for the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and his Department to assess it. I would absolutely say the Deputy should build a case and bring it to him in terms of the numbers and demand that would be there for such a service. I thank the Deputy again for bringing this to the House.