Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I thank the Fine Gael team for putting forward this important motion and using Private Members' time to discuss this issue. I and a number of colleagues debated this problem in a Commencement matter with the Minister. I welcome the chance to discuss this issue again. This problem is still massive in my area of south Kildare, as mentioned by other colleagues. Unfortunately, things are not getting much better for those who find themselves in this situation.

I watched a piece on "Prime Time" last night and became even more worried about possible solutions than I was when I left this House after the Commencement debate last week. I am not sure if the Minister's Department is hearing about the problems families, rather than individuals, are facing on a day-to-day basis. Families are the ones who have problems and are upset by this. Families are not thinking of giving up their jobs; rather they have given up their jobs in order to get their children to school. That is that reality in Kildare and other counties.

When the Minister sat down with her Department to discuss this, did nobody think of those who had concessionary tickets and the fact that under the eligibility criteria for the scheme they would lose out? Did nobody in the Department ask what those families were going to do? That is the bottom line. They are the people who are suffering. They are ringing me and other colleagues in Kildare week in and week out. They are crying on the phone to me because they cannot get a ticket and there is no solution for them.

We have to determine what we are going to do in the next couple of weeks. Things cannot happen next year because the 6,000, 7,000 or 8,000 pupils mentioned by colleagues in the Fine Gael team during this debate are still without tickets. They are still trying to figure out how they are going to get their children to school and they want to know whether the Minister or the Department have called Bus Éireann and determined how many vacancies are on the buses. The bus operators I have spoken to over the past number of days and weeks have told me they have not be contacted by anybody in the Department or Bus Éireann to find out whether there is spare capacity on their buses. We are now weeks into this crisis. That is what is happening.

I have received calls from parents who have informed me that they are aware of students who have received tickets but are not using the bus, as other colleagues have said. I am informed that a number of students who are no longer attending secondary school have received tickets. Despite being in third level education, they received tickets for second level students. Over the weekend, I was contacted by a school teacher who told me of two pupils who are no longer in her school. She contacted me because a mother was crying with her as she would not be able to bring her children to school. The teacher called me to ask whether I could point out during the debate that there are two vacancies on a bus in Kildare.

This is something that has been replicated time and again in the phonecalls I have received. I could give the Minister personal stories as I did on a previous occasion. I have raised with the Department an issue she asked me to raise during the previous debate and I am sure she will revert to me on that. The bottom line is that those who had tickets for three, four, five or six years now find their children on the side of the road. As I said during the Commencement debate, they are following buses with empty seats.

I refer to the issue of 70-year-olds raised by the Minister. She mentioned But Éireann is keeping the matter under review. That is not good enough. The Minister for Transport extended the scheme to 75-year-olds this year, including ex-military personnel who can drive buses. There are plenty of them out there. This is about capacity and ensuring that the 6,000, 7,000 or 8,000 parents affected can get their children to school. As I said, phonecalls need to be made and I ask the Minister to please start making them.