Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of the school bus scheme. While it may seem too early to be raising this, I am already being overwhelmed with communications from stressed-out parents. Under the current criteria, a primary school pupil must live at least 3.2 km from their nearest school to qualify for a bus place. In 2024, it was mooted that this will be reduced to 2 km and then eventually to 1 km for primary pupils. One of my constituents lives on a road where there are 12 students who do not meet the criteria and are not eligible for the bus. This means there are six parents and six cars driving in and out the road twice a day and leaving work early to do collections. The Government talks about wanting to reduce carbon emissions, but its words are not backed up by clear actions. Our young people and parents deserve better than having to deal with this avoidable stress by missing out on an unfair lottery system. The pick-up zone restrictions particularly penalise those in rural areas. We cannot be so strict with the distance rule when many children who live in a rural area have no option except to travel by car. Due to the clever use of language by this Government, many parents believed this new distance rule had already been introduced, but now these families are stuck not knowing what to believe. I call on the Minister for Education to provide a clear roadmap on how this is going to be phased in over the next few years.