Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

The review of the school transport scheme that happened a few years ago was very welcome. It was badly needed. It did take a long time, but it was eventually published about 18 months ago. It made a number of recommendations about reducing the distance people had to live from their school to avail of school transport and that they had to attend their nearest school. I was expecting that some of the recommendations might have been implemented for this school year and maybe we would not have the same number of problems when the schools resumed. Unfortunately, however, that was not the case because none of the recommendations have been implemented as yet. I know a commitment has been given that they will be by 2030. There were 14 pilot projects launched last year and there does not seem to be any increase in those and they are not being reviewed yet, which is disappointing because I really think that if the pilot projects are looked at, they are a good idea to integrate school transport with other transport routes that exist in the community like Local Link, etc.

I still have parents contacting me whose children did not get tickets at the last minute and who want concessionary tickets and who got them for the past number of years but did not get them for this year. Senators have been talking about how people can register for a ticket as they start school and they will get it for the eight years, but that can only happen if the capacity in the system is increased. At the moment, not all students who register get tickets because there just is not the capacity. There is a lot of movement as well because of the housing issue. Families regularly move and have to reregister for tickets.

I raised with the Minister of State last week the situation in Belturbet. That is ongoing, obviously. I am hoping he will be able to assist in some way in helping those students get to school where they are not having to pay huge amounts of money every week on a private provider. I also have another situation where two boys in a family are attending secondary school. They applied for tickets and were told they are eligible but there is no service, so they should be entitled to the remote area grant. Bus Éireann is claiming that they applied late and, therefore, are not entitled to the grant this year. However, last year, the oldest of the children was starting school, applied for a bus ticket, was told that, yes, he was eligible, but there is no service, but he was never informed that he was entitled to the remote area grant. He was able to get a lift with a neighbour to the school last year, but that neighbour has now finished school and is no longer travelling. This is a single parent who does not have transport. She is on disability allowance and cannot afford to pay for transport to the school. As a result, they are missing out on school. I have emailed the Minister of State the details and perhaps it could be looked at. The point I am making was that even if she was late in applying for whatever reason this year, I have come across situations where parents have been late in applying before and Bus Éireann will say that, when everybody else is catered for, it will see if there is any room on the bus for them. Therefore, some students who have applied late still end up getting tickets. In this instance, if people are relying on a remote area grant, they are being discriminated against because they are not considered if they are late.

I am aware of another situation where a student was getting his concessionary ticket - a bus pass basically going from the front door to the school - but the school he was going to was not his nearest school and he lost his ticket. If he was to go to his nearest school, he would have to walk a number of miles to get the bus to that school. The bus to the school in question was not even his second nearest, because he would have been entitled to the ticket there as well, but his third nearest, but all the schools were relatively similar distances. Again, it is poor organisation that he could not actually attend that school the bus was going to past the front door.

Parents have got very short notice of either a service that was not running, and I know sometimes things can happen and a service has to be pulled at the last minute, or the fact that their students did not succeed in getting a ticket this year. I actually thought the registration process might have started earlier and it did not. It started at the same time as every other year; 25 or 26 April or something like that was the closing date. Maybe of that could be brought back a few months, Bus Éireann and the Department would be aware of exactly how many students are applying for school bus tickets.

Officials from Bus Éireann appeared before the Joint Committee on Education and Youth prior to the recess. We were talking about school transport, and I asked the question of how much of the fleet or buses that actually bring students to school are owned by Bus Éireann, and they told me 5%. I was actually very shocked. It is 5%. I thought they might have said 50% or something like that, but it is 5%, so 95% of our school transport is reliant on private operators. I know Bus Éireann finds it difficult to get operators. I am not surprised when it is actually that amount. One question I did ask was whether there is an intention to invest in the school fleet because if we are to increase the capacity by 100,000 by 2030, as was stated by Government, we are going to have to find buses somewhere. We must invest in it and have an integrated system.I always thought it was a waste to have school buses dropping children to secondary and primary school, only for the buses to sit there doing nothing for the bulk of the day and then go back at 3 p.m., or 4 p.m. for the secondary school students, and that was it. An integrated system whereby the buses do the school bus runs but also provide other Local Link services would be a better way to go. We talked about drivers aged 70 having to retire as well. That is something I support being looked at.

Special transport was put on for Ukrainian children. Could that be integrated? I know of families who would see the bus collecting the children from Ukraine who were living in the community to take them to school, yet they had no transport. This bus was going by their doors. There was space on the bus yet they could not use it. It is also better for the children attending the local school to be integrated as much as possible.

There is a significant amount of money being spent on bringing students with additional needs to school. That is necessary but, in many cases, the children are travelling long distances. The Minister of State with responsibility for special education knows this better than me. If more special classes could be opened in schools, it would mean children would not have to travel long distances past their nearest school to get the education they need, the most appropriate education, and they would be able to use school transport.