Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to facilitate a debate on and subsequent review of the school transport system. The principle behind the system, which is that a child should go to their nearest school, is a good and reasonable one and makes logistical sense from every perspective. However, like every good principle and every good scheme, and it is a great scheme, it needs constant review. There are some difficulties with the current situation. This comes up in our work at constituency level and anecdotally. It is dividing families in some instances. By that, I mean that some older members of a family would previously have gone to a particular school and that would have been acceptable then but under the current transport rules, the younger ones cannot follow so you have children going to different schools, which is creating all sorts of hardship for families. It is also creating difficulties where an older child would have been a mentor and support to a younger child. That is the first difficulty. The second is that there can be special family circumstances where difficulties arise in respect of a person working in a different town, a grandmother available in the evening or a family member and it is more appropriate that the child goes to another school that is a bit further away. Sometimes the needs of the child can be better facilitated by a particular school in a particular instance. Could the relevant Minister come to the House to discuss the school transport system and the difficulties we are encountering at a practical level, and applaud a wonderful system that could be improved a bit and made more user-friendly so that we get a better outcome for parents and pupils? This is not some whimsical idea of mine. It is based on practical cases coming to me.