Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate her on her new role. I hope she is successful. It is important for many people that she is.

The Minister of State may have heard of Involve Autism, an advocacy group based in Dublin 6. It is very constructive, positive, detailed and solution focused. One of the things it has highlighted is the cost of transporting children with special educational needs and children with disabilities to school just in south Dublin. I have raised this here before. In south Dublin, from Ringsend, Pearse Street and Kevin Street out to Terenure and Rathfarnham, in 2021 the State spent €63,579 per day on taxis and buses to transport children to school. That was to transport children way out of their own communities, meaning they had to leave their siblings, get on a bus and off they went. In 2021-22 that rose to €72,704 a day. In 2022-23 that rose again to €91,919. In 2023-24 that rose again to €107,000 per day, transporting children out of their communities to schools. So far in the 2024-25 school year it is working out at €122,453 per day. That is just bizarre; it is bonkers. That comes to €612,000 per week which is almost €2.5 million per month. Over the seven months of a school year it works out at €17 million a year. How does that make any sense? How can the Government stand over and defend that? How does that make sense for anybody in society?