Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I, too, offer my condolences to the family, colleagues and friends of the late Senator Dowling.

I wish to raise the issue of the school transport scheme, which is now open for applications but which will close later this month, and how it is designed. The rules of the scheme, particularly the criteria that students need to live 3.2 km away from a primary school or 4.8 km from a secondary school in order to qualify, demonstrate that it is very much designed with rural schools and communities in mind. There is no attempt to meet the demands of an urban population. In this day and age, when we look at attempts, particularly in urban areas, to promote active travel and ensure that kids can walk, cycle or travel by bus to school, it is incredible that we have a scheme which should be meeting student's needs but which is simply not doing so.

There is a great example of a sustainable village project currently taking place in Cabra that is looking at how to promote more active travel in that particular community. Every day there are lots of parents dropping kids off to school in cars. We know from those involved in the sustainable village project who conducted a survey across a number of schools in the Cabra area that there were 160 expressions of interest in a bus for children who travel from Finglas to the Cabra area. This should not be rocket science but, unfortunately, Bus Connects will not provide for that particular linkage in the new roll-out of routes across Dublin over the coming years. As a result, I am left to appeal to the Ministers for Education and Transport in respect of this matter.

In an ideal world, the Minister for Transport would take a view on this, given that so much of the rest of his Department is trying to promote active travel but when I contacted his Department, I was told that this is a matter for the Department of Education. The critical issue here is that while we have the school transport scheme being operated by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education, it cannot be left solely to that Department to look at the objectives of the scheme. I appeal to the Leader to write to the Ministers for Transport and Education to ask them to consider reviewing the rules of the scheme.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Deputy Peter Burke on his appointment as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Deputy Emer Higgins on her appointment as Minister of State in the same Department. However, I wish to point out that in all of the interviews they have conducted over the past week, we have heard many references to supports for businesses and raiding the National Training Fund, but we have barely heard any references to the warehoused tax debts that will fall due by the end of this month and what the State is going to do to support businesses in that context. Neither have we heard anything from them regarding the collective bargaining directive that has to be transposed into Irish law by November. I would like the Minister and the Minister of State to be invited to the Chamber for a debate on those issues.