Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I raise an issue that is affecting a lot of schoolgoing kids in Roscommon, especially in the Athlone municipal district. This relates to kids trying to get to school on a daily basis in Roscommon town and the unpredictability and unreliability of the school bus service. This has been raised with me by a number of the councillors in Roscommon's Athlone municipal district, namely, Councillors Domnick Connolly and Valerie Duffy. They are highlighting the bus that services areas like Mote Park, Four Roads, Rahara, Curraghboy and Ballymurray. In the last 12 months, there have been at least 12 to 15 occasions when that school bus has not shown up. In the age of social media and always being connected, parents are still only finding out about this as kids are standing on the side of the road as opposed to being notified in advance. I would like to call for a debate on the school bus service once again and on the communication with the parents of the students accessing that bus service.

I stand with my colleague and extend the warmest congratulations to the former Minister, Paschal Donohoe, as he takes on his new role with the World Bank. For nearly two decades, he has been an exemplary representative. His leadership has got us through things like Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and major global uncertainty. I wish him and his family the very best. The one thing I will miss is the "Prime Time" debates on budget day when Paschal regularly taught a lesson to whomever his opponent was on the night on why he had made the decisions and why they were in the best interests of the country.