Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I will slightly recast the Topical Issue that I submitted, which was not to deal with school bus transport in west Waterford. It was specifically on a school transport issue arising between Ardmore and Dungarvan. If the Minister of State does not know that part of the world well, I remind him that Ardmore is the seat of St. Declan, who converted the Déise tribe to Christianity, which was how the name "the Déise" came to be synonymous with County Waterford, including this part of the county. Ardmore is 23 km from Dungarvan but it is 14 km from Youghal, which is across the border in County Cork. This is where our problem starts.

The vast majority of children who finish their primary schooling in Ardmore or in the Grange area, which is a little further down the road, go to Dungarvan for secondary school. There is a whole host of reasons for that, one of which is choice. There is one secondary school in Youghal and there are four secondary schools in Dungarvan. There are also historical associations; maybe mum or dad went to a school in Dungarvan. The fact of the matter is that this is not about county colours, as such. The majority of people in Ardmore will turn to Dungarvan for their services. It is their natural county town in the area. If you look at the figures that graduated from sixth class in the last year, only one child went to Youghal. One child went to Meánscoil San Nioclás, which is in Gaeltacht na nDéise and the rest of the children headed into Dungarvan.

The Minister of State will be able to see this in the issue I am about to detail further.

There are busloads of children heading from Ardmore to Dungarvan, but the problem is they do not start in Ardmore, as the nearest school eligibility criterion means that a school bus is not provided between Ardmore and Dungarvan.

We arrived at an Irish solution to an Irish problem. Approximately 10 km further up the road from Ardmore is Kiely's Cross, which is 12 km from Dungarvan, and a child can get a school bus from there to Dungarvan. We have a slightly insane situation whereby parents are ferrying their children 10 km out of the town - further if they are coming from Grange - and dropping their kids off at Kiely's Cross, where their kids are picked up by the school bus and brought into Dungarvan.

The main issue with this is that Kiely's Cross is on a dead-straight part of the N25. When I drove up to witness this in person and speak to the parents, I was doing just under 100 km/h but was still passed by three cars on that stretch of road. People fly on it. They should not be doing that speed, but they do. It is an area that is extremely prone to fog even though it was the end of August when I was there and it was still not dark in the morning.

Kids are being left out on the side of a main road in order to access these bus services. It is a real road safety issue. I have corresponded with the Minister, Bus Éireann and TII. I was amazed when I received correspondence back from TII. TII wished to advise me that it had not been aware of this issue and had since raised it with Waterford City and County Council, the road authority for the area. The correspondence pointed out that Kiely's Cross was a high-speed rural section of road that was not suitable for a bus stop, nor was it an appropriate location for a concentration of services as outlined in my submission. TII went on to say that it was now taking the issue up with the Department of Education and the council.

This is dangerous. Whatever about school bus provision, I do not want us to wait until there is an accident to arrive at a commonsensical solution to this problem.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of the Ardmore-Dungarvan route. For the sake of the written record, I will leave out the first number of paragraphs of the script, as they describe the school bus scheme in some detail and may not be of major relevance.

I will discuss the school transport 2030 report, which was published this year and is the largest review of the school transport scheme since the scheme's establishment in 1967. The Government is working to achieve the report’s recommendation of expanding access to the scheme so that we can get another 100,000 pupils on the buses by 2030. The recommended changes to the future operation of the scheme include expansion of the current eligibility criteria, addressing current operational challenges and moving towards better integration with public transport to ensure the best value for money for the Exchequer.

The analysis conducted as part of this comprehensive review has illustrated the importance of school transport to families, but it has also shown how the scheme can support wider Government policies, including climate action targets, supporting working parents, many of whom are dropping their children at Kiely's Cross as the Deputy described, supporting the labour market, supporting families to live and work in rural Ireland and teaching life skills to children. We started to implement the review's recommendations at the start of the year and, subject to resources, we hope to commence implementing the revised criteria in the next school year.

Regarding the topic raised by the Deputy, he will understand that Bus Éireann is responsible for the planning and timetabling of school transport routes on behalf of the Department. The safety of children on the school transport services is of paramount importance to the Department and Bus Éireann, and so it should be. Due to an increase in the volume of activity at the pickup point in question for the current school year, Bus Éireann has advised that the point is under assessment. Bus Éireann will contact families directly to advise of the outcome of the assessment. I urge it to do so as quickly as possible.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I know it is under assessment, as I have kicked up blue bloody murder to have it assessed. It is only a matter of time. One would want to see it to believe it. It is a main stretch of the N25, a single carriageway with a hard shoulder on either side. The cars do not have any place to pull up. There is a small privately owned car park. Many of the cars are pulling up on the hard shoulders and the buses have to pull in. The three buses that arrived while I was there actually pulled into the turning lane, which leads to Ardmore. That is where they were setting the children down. It is on the right side of the road, so the situation is worse in the morning when the kids have to cross the road while cars are travelling at 100 km/h or more. Let us add the dark mornings into that and how the place is prone to fog.

The root problem is the nearest school eligibility criterion. The school transport review talks about doing away with it, so we can solve this by trying to get a head start. There are 34 kids coming out of Ardmore on a private bus at a cost of €40 per week, or €1,200 over the course of a school year, which is no joke. On the public bus are 40 more students from Ardmore village. A bus could be filled in Ardmore village and transport students straight into Dungarvan. There are 26 students who come from Grange. That is enough for a minibus. We could fill one up and let the pupils go straight in from there. There are nine students from in and around the Kiely’s Cross area and seven students from the Piltown-Clashmore area.

The solution is as obvious as the nose on your face. We can set a bus off from Ardmore, set another off from Grange and have an existing one at Kiely’s Cross with enough room in the car park to facilitate that safely. What is stopping us is the nearest school eligibility criterion. The buses are already there, so it is not about trying to add additional capacity. The drivers are happy to go from Grange or Ardmore. Let us not wait for a tragedy to arrive at a solution that is right there in front of our faces.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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There has been an increase in the number of tickets issued this year, with more than 140,000 issued. The numbers travelling on our bus services have increased significantly over the past number of years, at 38% over a five-year period.

As the Deputy and I have both highlighted, Bus Éireann is currently assessing the route and will continue to ensure the safety, and must ensure the safety, of all pupils on board school transport services.

I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to update him on the school transport system. In particular, I hope that, by the Deputy raising this matter in the Dáil, Bus Éireann will listen. It is responsible for operational matters on the ground, but it is required to do so efficiently and safely. I hope it will listen to the Deputy's pleas for the families and children in these areas.