“Groundhog Day for parents as school transport deficits reoccur like clockwork" - TD

Independent TD for Laois Offaly Carol Nolan has said she has been engaging with the Minister for Education, Norma Foley, and Bus Eireann, as the volume of parents who cannot access school transport for the forthcoming academic year continues to rise. Bus Éireann delivers the School Transport Scheme on behalf of the Department of Education.

Deputy Nolan said it was ‘frankly ludicrous for parents to have to deal with this issue yet again despite the clear need for the Scheme to be demand led.’

Last September Minister Norma Foley confirmed that there had been a significant increase in the number of students applying for the school transport scheme following a decision by Government to make the service free as a cost-of-living support measure.

However, this led to severe capacity issues for approximately 15,000 students nationally:

“At this point, the entire process is just farcical, and for many parents, deeply infuriating and upsetting," said Deputy Nolan.

“We all accept that the decision last year to waive the average fee of €500 was a welcome move that saved families money in time of increasing financial pressure.”

“However, it should have been possible then, and even more so now, to foresee that making the service free was going to increase the numbers of those applying and that this would then require timely and advance actions to ensure greater numbers of buses were made available.”

“This has not happened and as a result, families in both Offaly and Laois are now under incredible strain as they scramble to try and source transport for their children.”

“We know that the Bus Éireann family portal closed for all applications and payments for a period of three weeks from June 9 to 30 June 30. This was supposed to allow time for Bus Éireann to process applications and arrange transport as soon as possible for the 2023/24 school year.”

“Yet here we are yet again with families effectively stranded by the inability or, more to the point, the unwillingness of Bus Eireann or the Department to sanction additional pick-ups or create additional capacity.”

“This is particularly impacting secondary school children from Emo and The Rock attending Mountmellick Community School, but it is also creating a lot of strain among families elsewhere in the constituency who are having to deal with the completely avoidable logistical headaches that reoccur like clockwork every year.”

“It also flies in the face of the Government's ambition to take cars off the road and increase the use of buses. As things stand now many parents will have no choice but to use their cars to bring their children to school simply because they may be marginally outside an arbitrarily defined distance threshold from their school.”

“We need more buses and we need additional capacity but most importantly we just need a bit of common-sense and cop on to prevail,” concluded Deputy Nolan.