Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 1726: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if, in relation to ongoing school transport issues in County Wexford, she will determine if the Wexford transport liaison officer has been instructed by her Department to use the map on the website to determine eligibility for 2007; if so the basis on which the Wexford map was replaced without review or consultation; if notice of changed catchment has been notified to Wexford schools and parents; if the transport liaison officer has been instructed, in relation to the Blackwater area, to use the boundary on the Wexford section or the boundary on the Kilmuckridge section of that map since they both show different boundaries for Blackwater; and if not, if the transport liaison officer has been instructed to reinstate the official vocational education committee map which has always been used to determine school transport eligibility in County Wexford. [2885/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Under the terms of the Department of Education and Science Post Primary School Transport Scheme, a pupil is eligible for transport if he or she resides 4.8 kilometres or more from his or her local post primary education centre, that is, the centre serving the catchment area in which he or she lives. The scheme is not designed to facilitate parents who choose to send their children to a post primary centre outside of the catchment area in which they reside.

There have been no changes to the catchment boundary map used for determining eligibility for school transport in Co. Wexford. No instruction has been given to the Transport Liaison Officer in Co. Wexford to use any map other than the definitive catchment boundary map originally drawn up by my Department's School Planning Section.

I do not propose at this stage to carry out a review of catchment boundaries in Co. Wexford.