Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I apologise for being late to the debate as I was at another meeting when the Minister was speaking.

The reality is this whole issue is about children. It is not about concessionary or non-concessionary tickets but about children getting to school. We are in a situation where the country is at full employment. We need to be at full employment and we need people to fill these jobs in our economy, yet families are left in a situation where one parent has to give up a job. I know of a family on a route to Moyne Community School where the father goes to the school at 6:30 a.m. and the child's mother looks after other kids who come from 7 a.m. to allow other parents to go to work. Another family with three children who have been on a bus over the past five years now have no transport to school. The Minister earlier this year visited Ballymahon Vocational School and Mercy Convent, two large progressive schools in the county that are now left in a situation where up to 14 kids have no transport to school, although they had that previously. As both parents may be working, it leaves people in a very difficult situation.

There are ways around it but, for some reason, the school transport office does not want to deal with it. A point was made by Senator Wall in regard to the over-70s. My family has a bus company. My uncle is over 70. His son can drive the bus to Moyne Community School, which is 13 miles away, but my uncle cannot drive it. He has a licence, is medically fit, and could bring a school group from the school to Cork or Belfast in the same bus, but he cannot drive the 13 miles down to the school. That does not make sense. I know it is the unions within Bus Éireann that are not allowing it but it does not make sense that somebody cannot drive 13 miles to a school when that same bus can pick up those kids and bring them to a basketball match or football match in the national stadium or wherever. It is ludicrous, to be honest, and it needs to be looked at.

I know of a situation where a company has larger buses. The seats have been filled out for 53 but the company has a 57-seater and a 59-seater bus. The school transport office will not let the company employ the larger bus, which could pick up the four kids on one of the routes that is short. It is not listening, although I put forward that proposal. That is an answer to one situation in one school. It is just a question of bringing a bigger bus, not a second bus, but it is not being looked at.

Somebody from the Department of Education needs to look at all of these individual situations. There are answers to this issue. At the root of it are the children. We are reliant on these children getting a good education to come into our workforce and replace all of us in our jobs in the years to come. We need to put the basics in place and allow them to get to school when there are answers to the problem, although it needs a bit of forward thinking. I ask the Minister to take on board that simple point about the over-70s which has been mentioned. I am sorry if the Minister dealt with this in her opening statement and I missed it. It does not make sense. I am giving that practical idea of somebody who is just over 70, medically fit, has a licence and can drive the whole way to Belfast in the same bus but cannot drive down to the school. As I said, it does not make sense. Where there are larger buses available that could pick up the shortfall in numbers, which would be at a very minimal extra cost, if any, that needs to be looked at. We cannot have a situation where people are forced to give up their jobs or work shorter hours.

I know is a difficult one for the Minister. It was an excellent proposal to fund those who had been paying for transport over the years and it was targeted at them. However, we need to think outside the box and come up with a solution to make sure those 6,000 kids have transport to school.