John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Senator Ned O'Sullivan called this a timely debate and it is only now we are seeing the repercussions of the blunt instrument introduced. I contacted the Minister of State about a number of cases. One involves a woman who came from Galway to a rural part of Roscommon and enrolled her twins in a school in Glenamaddy. She did not have children in secondary school before and was not aware of the rule that children must go to the nearest school. She was not told of the rule when she enrolled the children and, at the eleventh hour, when she required a bus ticket, she was told that, even though she has a medical card, she would be charged because she was not sending her children to the nearest school. She accepted that it was not the nearest school but her endeavours with Bus Éireann to get some discretion brought into the equation led to nothing. An official from Bus Éireann phoned her and offered to call down and hear her story. When he called down, she was not there and he returned to Galway. When she subsequently spoke to him on the phone two days later, his answer was that the child was not going to the school nearest to the family. She explained she was aware of this, yet the official from Bus Éireann came from Galway, 60 miles each way, to measure the distance. That is pure nonsense, where one arm of the State can be milking it for travel expenses while this woman is expected to pay ¤600 that she does not have.

Another case involves a distance of a few hundred metres and a child with special needs. The child is going to a school and the psychologist has written to the special educational needs organiser suggesting the child is in the most appropriate school, but the letter seems to carry no weight.

I have other examples also. There are still empty seats on buses that could facilitate the children in question.

There is no mechanism in place to deal with discretionary cases; that is my biggest problem. From my dealings with legislation in my previous day job down through the years, I noted discretion was always provided for in social welfare legislation. There was always provision for a ministerial decision if all else failed. There is a need for ministerial intervention on this issue, just for this year. I ask for a moratorium on the heavy-handed approach that applies this year. Families should be fully informed for next year. This certainly did not happen this year. I sympathise with those families who were caught in a trap and did not realise what they were doing when they bought uniforms for children and enrolled them in a certain school only to be told that the school is a meter farther away than another. I would like to hear the Minister's response.