Thank you for the opportunity to raise this issue on the Adjournment. Every Member will recall instances where Departments have done ridiculous, foolish and occasionally stupid things. This is one such occasion. The children who attend the school catering for the local Church of Ireland community in the Clane area had free transport for the past seven to nine years. Suddenly some guru in the Department decided he or she would earn themselves the eternal gratitude of someone somewhere I do not know. He or she decided the children lived 200 yards or thereabouts nearer to another school which is outside the parish. It should be possible even for the Department of Education and Science to realise there is such a thing as a parish community which is important to people of all religions. It is not a simple or easy matter to decide to take one's children away from that school and send them, in accordance with the wishes of a Department, to another school which is outside their radius and away from their friends. I regard that as a daft decision but the next part is the daftest I have ever heard. There is no saving to the Department because the same school bus travels on the same route it has always travelled, except it has six or seven fewer passengers. It was not full previously nor is it full now.
The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, is the type of person who would love to get his teeth into such a problem and resolve it. I have no doubt he can resolve it. I put it in the simple words of a parent of one of the children who said: "This is a stupid situation. We have three children in Hewetsons school. My eldest son has been attending for the last seven years and has been using the bus with a free pass since he started. Celbridge (the alternative school which has been referred to) is still in the same place now as it was when my child started school. (That is a strange confirmation of the obvious if ever there was one). It has not come any nearer to us so I cannot understand why there is a change in policy". That is a simple reaction from a parent to something that is obvious to her, to me and I am sure to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea. She concluded by saying: "The children make up one third of the group in the bus. The bus comes near to our stop for another child and it only comes half a mile off the route to collect our children". If it did not come that half mile off the route the problem would not arise. It does not seem a good business policy for the Department to run a bus to Hewetsons school which is only half full and ask the parents to switch to another school, for which it says it cannot provide a bus service in any event but the parents are expected to provide it.
The case speaks for itself. I could make other pertinent points but I will not do so. I will leave it to the discretion of the Minister to take the problem by the scruff of the neck and say, "Enough is enough of that sort of nonsense, we intend to resolve the problem and restore the status quo".
