Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail)

Ar dtús báire ba mhaith liom fáilte mhór a chur roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach an tráthnóna seo. I thank the Minister of State for taking time out of his busy schedule to be here. This is the first opportunity I have had to have a debate with him in the Seanad. I wish him every success in his role. I have no doubt he will bring his usual vigour and determination to that post and will be a great success in it.

I raise the retirement age of 70 years for Bus Éireann drivers. This needs to be re-examined because it discriminates against people who are capable of providing a valued service. Many people feel it is unfair that drivers are not able to continue to drive a bus after their 70th birthday. These people are perfectly fit and healthy, are medically assessed and are licensed to drive a bus, yet they cannot do so due to Bus Éireann's one-size-fits-all policy, which basically means that people aged 70 years and older are considered unfit to drive a bus.

Another issue is that bus drivers aged over 70 years frequently drive commercial and private buses for much longer in life and there is no issue. Typically, a school bus driver will drive for roughly one and a half hours in the morning and the same again in the evening for five days a week during the academic year. It is ludicrous that someone aged 70 is not allowed to drive children to school but can drive a private bus and take the same children 200 miles down the road and back home again with no issue whatsoever.If the Bus Éireann assessment systems are good enough to determine whether someone can drive a bus at 69 years, surely those same criteria could be used to assess someone who is 70 years or older at a time when we need loads of drivers. No doubt come September this House and the Dáil will be back talking about the shortage of drivers for school buses. It is something that needs to be addressed immediately.

I understand that Bus Éireann has no current plans to address this particular situation but I note it recently reduced the minimum age for bus drivers, which was 23 to 24, to 21 yet it did not see fit to look at the mandatory retirement age of 70 years. In the UK, our nearest neighbour, there is no such age restriction. If you pass the medical and other tests, you are fit to drive, as far as they are concerned. I see no reason why we cannot adopt that same model here in this jurisdiction because clearly, as I said, there is a chronic need for bus drivers. Many who are retired from their life-long occupation now use this particular job as a part-time job as it is only an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening. It is not very taxing or stressful. Many of them enjoy it and they provide a valuable public service.

I look forward to the Minister of State’s response. I sincerely hope the thinking has changed and that we can use whatever influence we have in both Houses to ask Bus Éireann to seriously assess the situation. Someone told me the last time it was raised in this House there were issues of safety once a person is past 70 years of age. We are not talking about someone working 40 or 50 hours a week. We are talking about someone working at most three or four hours a day, five days a week, for the academic year.