Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I rise today, on the final sitting of this term, to talk about school buses once again. It is something I have raised on at least two occasions in recent weeks, but this is a good news story. Bus Éireann this week came back to me and, after a submission I made initially in March, said:

We have investigated the feasibility of amending the school bus to serve Ballymoe Village and I wish to advise that this amendment will take effect for the 2025/2026 ... academic year.

Because of what I have said in this Chamber before, I want to acknowledge and thank Bus Éireann for coming back to me on that. Now that Bus Éireann has an idea of who needs buses for the next academic year, I would like it to engage with us as public reps much earlier, right now, to see what solutions we can put in place before September to ensure that everybody is serviced and has that service available to access school. However, I wish to put on the record my appreciation. It did take two and a half months to get a response from the reps' email address, so hopefully we can improve on that for the next term.

Before we finish up, on behalf of the Fine Gael Members in this House, I say "thank you" to all the staff here in the Houses of the Oireachtas, including the ushers, the caterers and the cleaners. It has been my first five months involved in this House and they have made us feel very much part of the furniture throughout. I thank them for that. I thank Bridget and all the staff here in the Seanad as well. They have made it a very easy transition from rural Ireland to coming up here.