John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators for the information they have dispersed to me today. Some specific cases have been brought to my attention here. Rather than take these individually I would be delighted to meet with Senators on those particular issues. If we can facilitate it I am prepared to come back to Dublin over the next couple of weeks. I am, unfortunately, up to my eyeballs tomorrow and I know the Dáil is finishing up this week. If Senators could make themselves available next week, or the week after, I will come to Dublin to meet with Senators on the individual cases. I will try to have an official from the Department with me to see if we can work through the issues.

As I said earlier, since taking on the position of dealing with school transport I have been committed to making sure that every child who needs to be transported to school should have transport to school. If it was within my financial remit I would have every child, concessionary or otherwise, being brought to school at a reduced cost. There was an independent review and a comprehensive value for money review of the school transport scheme. I believe it was brought before the Dáil and the Oireachtas - I may be corrected in that if necessary but I believe it was - and this is where we are now operating from. We are also operating from a cost of €182 million annually.

I will go through some of the points made but first will give an overall view. It is a very significant scheme.The scheme was put in place to deal with children who were eligible to be transported to the nearest school. We now have, which we did not have initially in dealing with the scheme, 25,000 concessionary children who we try to move every year as best as we can.

Senators have spoken about medical cards. We probably should look at that. Concessionary children, whether in possession of a medical card or not, must pay. That, itself, could be a significant cost. I am willing to have a look at that.

According to an assessment that was done, the unit cost of transporting each child has been estimated at €1,000 whereas the maximum charge is €350.

Senator Boyhan brought up the case of a Church of Ireland school. Concessions were made in 1967-1968 to allow for Church of Ireland children due to the dispersed nature of the schools. I take the point the Senator is making as whether it should matter whether a child is Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Catholic, etc.

I was asked if there are procurement issues. As the Senators will probably be aware, the procurement is done through EU legislation. If there are suggestions of inappropriate tendering or trading, they should be brought to the Department of Education and Skills and should be investigated. I have not been made aware of any inappropriate tendering. Like everyone else, I receive letters every week on why a person did not win a tendering process, but nobody has said it to me. However, there is an appropriate authority to bring that to.

On bus sizes, this is the difficulty. I meet Senators and Deputies who say the bus size is for nine and they ask can we not allow nine. Based on the cost of running the scheme, where would we set an end point? If we were to bring it down to seven, I can guarantee a Deputy or a Senator would say that the bus is for six so why not allow six. If we brought it down to three, they would ask that it be brought down to two. I take on board what was said about the bus size. We should look at that to see if we can find an appropriate bus that would take the seven, eight or ten, but ten is the number set down. I have given advice to individuals who have asked me to go back to the school to see they can get somebody else on the bus. If a bus has eight or nine and cannot reach ten, it can say to the Department it thinks it will have ten next year. We will not remove that bus and it gives them a year to see if they get ten.

Senators spoke about legislation and reviews and whether the legislation needs to be changed. That can be done by all of us. For instance, if, in the budget next year, someone was to say to me that I had an extra €20 million for school transport, I can guarantee that in respect of many of the issues we have, such as the distance, the buses, concessionary eligibility, special needs and those helping with special needs, there would be no difficulty in transporting everyone we had to transport. Unfortunately, I am working under criteria which were not laid down by me but are in legislation. I have endeavoured within that process to make as many changes as I can with concessionary eligibility and with buses. I understand there are difficulties with routes. There is no way a child with special needs should be on a bus for two hours, and I will look at that. This is the first I have heard of that. That would be unacceptable to me, if that is the case. If any Senator or his or her colleagues have an issue at any stage, or if they want to bring a family to meet me, I will meet them. Over the holiday period, I am prepared to come to Dublin to meet any Member of the Oireachtas who wants to meet me. I repeat the point that I am sympathetic to the families involved who have some difficulties, whether it be monetary difficulties, geographical difficulties with the buses or otherwise but I must apply the same approach nationally. I must apply the scheme according to the criteria laid down for me in the legislation.

I understand the concern about affordability. It would be disingenuous of me to say there are not families which will find it difficult to pay €350 or €650, or even €100, to have their child taken to school. That is also a budgetary matter. If I was given an extra €5 million, I could allay the charge on a child going to school, whether he or she is an eligible child or a concessionary child. Maybe legislation needs to be introduced in that regard, but one should bear in mind that would involve an cost additional to the €182 million we are already spending.

Reviews and the appeals were mentioned. We have had a look at that, and I am reviewing it at present. I spoke to the Department on how we review contentious issues and I expect it to come back to me in the next couple of months in that regard.

I have endeavoured to involve Oireachtas Members with a group I set up and to come back with ideas. I will take on board everything that has been said to me today. Can I change everything? It may not be in my remit to do that but everybody who has spoken today can meet me individually with whatever issues he or she has and I will endeavour to have somebody from the Department go through all these issues.

I was asked if we needed a complete review of the school transport scheme. I emphasise there are 116,000 children being transported twice a day, 12,000 of whom have special needs, and that the vast majority of families say it is a good scheme. Is it a bit expensive? That remains to be debated. The monetary value of the scheme is a debateable issue. However, the vast majority of families think it is a fairly good scheme. I ask Senators to consider what I said in my initial remarks, namely, that 116,000 children, including 12,000 children with special needs, are transported twice a day, that 5,000 special vehicles take children with special needs and that 100 million km are covered every year.

Of course, there will be difficulties and there are routes that should be reviewed. Mention was made of a route that has not been reviewed for ten years. That is unacceptable. I have spoken to Bus Éireann consistently about reviewing routes. If a route changes or if a mountain area becomes overgrown and the road becomes impassable, that should be looked at and reviewed. We try to do that.

Sometimes we can be critical of the Department. I suppose when I was in opposition, like many of the Senators, I could be like that. However, one of the Department officials is with me. The officials are really conscientious and compassionate about every issue. There is not an issue on which they do not sit down with families or individuals to talk it through but they also are restricted by the cost of the scheme and the criteria laid down in the scheme from 1967-1968 to 2011-2012 and the concessionary review. This is the difficulty we face.

I will take on board everything Senators have said. I will not walk out of here and say I got an easy ride today, no hassle and no argument. I believe passionately in this scheme and I try to do my best every day of the week to ensure every child, eligible or otherwise, gets to school.As a parent of three daughters myself, I chose the school I wanted my daughters to attend because I thought it was the best school. If I had my way as Minister of State I would transport all children to the school which their parents wanted them to attend but that would involve an astronomical cost. If one looks at the schemes across Europe, the Irish scheme is regarded as being pretty good and pretty effective. Other countries have looked at the Irish scheme and at how it works. They continually look at how we run school transport and they are amazed at the amount of children that we transport.

I thank all the Senators for their contributions. I have written down everything. Ms McElduff from the Department is here. She is excellent. We will go through everything and we will meet all the Senators individually. They only have to contact me. They all have the office phone number. I give my guarantee that I will meet them on any individual case before the summer is out.