Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for reading out the names of those who lost their lives in the tragedy in Cork 100 years ago. I acknowledge the comments by my colleague, Senator Lombard, on this issue last week on attending the commemoration.

I got a call this morning from a local primary school that is taking in 17 Ukrainian children. All was going well and the children are settling in as best they can under the circumstances and the school and teachers are dealing with the situation as best they can as well. They are travelling from a hotel about 14 km away and one of the parents was accompanying them on the bus from the hotel to the school in order to ensure there would be somebody there with the language skills to deal with the bus driver if anything were to happen.

Unfortunately, the school was contacted this morning by Bus Éireann to tell it the parent can no longer travel on the bus with the students, even though she is the mother of one of them, and that that is now company policy. Since then, I have raised this through the Tánaiste's Department to bring it up the line because it does not make sense to me. I am not sure whether it is an issue of insurance or one of child protection, even though the parent is Garda-vetted, as one would expect given she also works in the local school in a voluntary capacity to deal with her own child and the students from Ukraine. It is therefore a strange issue and one that needs to be sorted. As I said, the worrying thing is this is now company policy nationwide, I assume. I have gone up the line on this and perhaps the Leader could do so as well.

On a second matter, I understand there have been a number of resignations from the board of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI. I was the Minister of State responsible for IFI a number of years ago. It was a challenging role for a variety of reasons but there now seems to be much unhappiness within the board as there have been two resignations, with more possibly to come. I am aware the Minister is looking at a whole independent review, as I understand it, of the board. There needs to be more than just looking at the board. There are management issues within IFI. There are issues that are happening that are being brought to the board belatedly, including, for example, 16 uninsured company vehicles on the road, one of which has been involved in a crash. The cost of that has not been established.

There has been locally-arranged leasing of Ashleigh Lodge, which was an IFI property, to a staff member as a guest house with no transparency process or financial accounts. There was inappropriate disbursal of Dormant Accounts Fund moneys, allocation to an angling club that did not exist and other matters as well. Again, IFI is a central body. Centralising it was not the right move. There is now a dissociation between central management and the work needed on the ground. I ask that the Minister be asked to come to the House to discuss all matters angling as he initiates a review of the governance or accountability of the board.