Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for being here and I thank the Cathaoirleach for organising this discussion this evening. Like Senator Curley, I want to acknowledge the 178,000 students that are getting on buses every morning, the 8,200 buses, and the 10,600 routes in the system. The Minister of State said that no child should be left behind and it is great to hear that. The increase in spending in this sector in recent years is impressive, going from €200 million to over €500 million, and shows that the Government is trying to resolve this issue and ensure that no child is left behind.

As Senator Curley has said, there are several issues that we are constantly being told about on the doorsteps. People are constantly getting in touch with us, both schools and parents, with issues. One of the problems that I have with the system is the communication. It is one of the longest processes in terms of getting a response when we raise an issue with the school bus system. I have raised this in the Chamber previously, with the Minister of State and with Bus Éireann. I hope that when the strategy is put in place in November this year, Bus Éireann will embrace it, stand up and respond to public representatives when we send in correspondence.

An issue that was mentioned by both previous speakers is sustainability and the efficiency of the routes. The only way that matter will improve is through more engagement with students and schools at a much earlier stage. We need to get out there and get questionnaires into the schools early to try to find out what the future demand is going to be, not just for next year, but in the longer term. I like what the previous speaker said about multi-year applications.We have all had the representations from families who have to make the same appeals every September when their tickets do not come through the door.

Going back to the sustainability and efficiency of the routes, last March, I met with a group of parents in a particular rural area who were having to drop students quite a substantial distance away from their homes to meet the bus route at what they felt was a dangerous place for dropping off students. They came up with a plan. It took three months of going over and back with Bus Éireann directly before it actually took it on board and engaged with the process. It was able to see that rather than two buses travelling 40% of their routes along the same route where one of the buses was not picking up any students, it made a lot more sense to do a wider loop and create a safer place in a smaller village to actually pick up students. That has been implemented. I thank the Minister of State for his intervention in that case because it made sense. However, we should not have to spend three months having to justify sense and sustainability and journeys that make sense and pick up more students.

I would also like if there was some sort of account taken of certain students, because the ones we seem to get more appeals for every September are those for whom there is a special case, such as that mentioned by the previous speaker where there was a family funeral and they were not able to get there. I have had experience where there have been deaths within families, and then there are one-parent families who have issues where they have to leave one of the kids in the house while they go off to meet a new bus route two hours earlier than they have to bring the smaller child to crèche services. The changing bus routes are not necessarily picking up any additional people; they might be doing it three or four minutes quicker. They are the sorts of stories we are hearing. They do not make sense. If people were engaged with at an earlier stage, they would be able to support and make Bus Éireann aware of these changes rather than having to appeal them three months after they have been implemented.

Another pet peeve I have is that when buses and routes are up and running we, as a State, are implementing large-scale infrastructural projects and all of a sudden, a school is finding out three or four days beforehand that the bus will not be able to pick up certain students because of infrastructural projects. These are not things that happen three or four days beforehand. I refer to large infrastructural projects like, let us say, the N5 between Roosky and Tibohine in my native County Roscommon. They knew that project was happening for the past 18 months because they have been planning for it, yet schools only found out in September, three days before the route was going to stop, that the students were not going to be picked up in Frenchpark. That took a lot of engagement from local councillors and me with the Minister of State's Department and Bus Éireann. However, people from Bus Éireann still had to go out and investigate and take an extra week to make sure the routes we were suggesting were suitable to pick up those students. That meant certain students - six to ten students - did not make school on that particular week in September because they had no other way of getting to school. The reason they were using the school transport system is that they had no transport. Perhaps something could be put in place so that we have a longer lead-in, or maybe when infrastructural projects are implemented, we engage at a much earlier stage with schools that are affected by these. That was an additional problem that I was not expecting. I was expecting no capacity or the concessionary tickets, not that a bus could not pick people up because a road was being closed. I know that when that particular project gets to its second phase, there will be an additional road closed and I am going to need to get it resolved again in two or three months' time. Perhaps we could build that resilience into the system so that we are engaging, communicating and bringing the people who are using these services along with us.