Private Members' Business. - Adjournment Debate: Bicycle Cost Grant. – Dáil Éireann (20th Dáil) – Tuesday, 2 Mar 1976

Private Members' Business. - Adjournment Debate: Bicycle Cost Grant.

Mr. C. Murphy

Tá áthas orm, a Cheann Comhairle, gur thug tú cead dom an cheist seo a phlé anocht. Tá súil agam go mbeidh mé in ann í a chur os cómhair an Tí go deimhneach agus go cruinn.

As I have said, I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to raise this matter on the Adjournment and I hope I shall have something definite to say on the matter of the two-thirds grant towards the cost of bicycles for school-children. First of all, I should like to relate how this matter came to my notice. The scheme was in the Department's archives since 1966 and this is where my worry comes in. It relates to a seven-year-old girl whose local national school was closed and she was transferred to another school. Automatically she would have been entitled to free school transport, but for various reasons she did not get it. Various offers were made, none of which could be considered satisfactory, the result being that the child was out of school for a long period.

I hope those responsible for this will be able to face up to it. Eventually in this case, the scheme for the payment of two-thirds grants came to light in the Department but naturally the parents of the child did not consider this form of transport suitable for a seven-year-old. My feeling about such cases is that the Administration find themselves dreadfully short of money and they are welching on their responsibility to provide adequate suitable transport for school-going children who qualify. I hope that this bicycle grant scheme, now that it has come to light, will not be abused, that it will not be used as some form of substandard transport. I hope that scheme will only complement and supplement but not substitute or replace suitable adequate school transport services.

As I said, this bicycle grant scheme apparently originated in the Department in 1966 and on 18th February last I asked the Minister for Education the amount of money paid by way of grants towards the cost of bicycles for school-children eligible for free school transport and the number of pupils so facilitated. The Minister replied that grants had been offered in a number of cases but only one such offer had been accepted in recent years. In that case, in September, 1972, three children in one family were involved and the grant towards the cost of three bicycles amounted to £59.33. I then asked the Minister when this scheme was introduced—had it been introduced with the free transport scheme? The Minister replied:

If the Deputy asks me that question on another ocasion, I will answer it.

On 25th February I had another question on the Order Paper and the answer was given by the Parliamentary Secretary. I asked him if his reply meant that where the number of eligible children did not constitute a bus quota the children involved would not be offered the two-thirds grant towards the cost of a bicycle. He replied:

They would be considered for that grant if they are eligible for transport and apply for the grant.

That is precisely my complaint: how could people apply for the grant if they were not aware it was available? What efforts have been made to publicise the scheme? How has it come about that since the scheme was introduced only one family availed of it? I asked these questions of the Minister on 18th February last and his reply was:

I take it this exchange will draw the attention of the public to it.

What kind of reply is that to give? The Minister is responsible for seeing such schemes are brought to the attention of deserving families. How could people apply for something they did not know existed? I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not consider it rude of me if I ask him whether he or the Minister were aware of the existence of this scheme prior to my raising it on behalf of one of my constituents. I hope the Department will arrange sufficient publicity for this scheme to allow people to apply for the grants.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will bear the safety factor in mind when considering this matter. Most of the children involved live in remote areas and although the roads they would have to travel on are comparatively quiet they must use them at a time when motorists are travelling to work. The age of the pupils who qualify for this grant should also be considered. Their safety is an important aspect.

I hope that in the efforts to economise and rationalise, efforts which are causing a great deal of concern to people adjacent to me, this scheme will not be offered by way of a substitute. I hope it will be used as a last resort and after all avenues have been explored. I hope we will not see a further rush or rationalisation in the Department with children attending certain schools being told that they must leave that school and avail of the transport to another school. Continuity in education is most important and the wishes of the parents should also be considered. I hope officials of the Department will not tell children who are attending a school 2.6 miles from them that they must attend a school which is 2.4 miles from them. This is happening at present. I should also like to know if this scheme is available to pupils attending secondary schools.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education (Mr. Bruton)

I should like to assure the Deputy that great attention will be paid to the safety factor when considering applications for grants under the scheme in question. I realise that with very young children on dangerous roads there could be problems. I realise that using a bicycle requires a certain degree of motoring ability which very young children do not have. The Deputy seemed to suggest that we would use this scheme as a means of economising on school transport but I should like to assure him that nothing could be further from the truth. It is not our wish to avoid carrying out our duty to provide school transport for those eligible pupils. The Deputy raised the question of the grants for bicycles.

Mr. C. Murphy

Would the Parliamentary Secretary care to let the House know the circumstances which lead to my raising this matter?

Mr. Bruton

I did not interrupt the Deputy. I should like to tell the Deputy that this grant does not apply to pupils attending secondary schools. Where transport cannot be provided within the normal terms of the scheme, because the children are so isolated that there is not a sufficient number to establish a service, there is in existence for second level pupils—it does not exist at first level—the possibility of offering a boarding grant. That is the course we would follow in such cases. I should like to draw the attention of the Deputy to the circumstances in which this scheme may be brought into operation. I indicated those circumstances in the course of a reply I gave to a question on Wednesday, 25th February. I said then that under the scheme grants towards the cost of bicycles are offered to children living in isolated areas where the nearest national school is a considerable distance away and where it is not possible or it is too costly to offer alternative transport facilities.

We have been operating that scheme in accordance with those fairly narrow terms of reference in cases where the school is a considerable distance away and where children are living in isolated areas. We have operated the scheme in the past three years in exactly the same way as it was operated by my predecessors. The Deputy raised the question of publicity for the scheme. In the normal way when a scheme is initiated it is given publicity. This scheme was introduced in 1966 and I did not have any responsibility for the publicity given to its introduction but the Department adopted the practice of bringing the terms of the scheme to the notice of parents where it was considered appropriate. The scheme was offered on an individual basis in the light of the circumstances prevailing. The Deputy urged that the scheme be used as a last resort and where school transport could not be provided. I should like to assure him that that has been the practice. We will not be seeking to use the bicycle grant scheme as a means of depriving children of getting transport. However, if we were to be too free in bringing forward the bicycle grant scheme it could have the effect of depriving children subsequently of the entitlement to school transport.

I should like to give an example which would illustrate this. If we had a situation where there were seven or eight children in an area eligible for transport they would not qualify for that transport, because as the House is aware, a service can only be established if there are ten children. However, in many such cases there would be a reasonable prospect that next year, or the year after, young children would be coming on to bring that number up to ten.

If we were to step in in these cases and, by publicity, seek to encourage some of the children to take bicycle grants and, say, four of them accepted it and the others did not, those four who accepted the bicycle grant would ipso facto rule themselves out for subsequent consideration for free school transport. By that act they would also rule out the children who might otherwise be eligible for school transport subsequently. They would reduce the numbers, and in the following year when maybe there was a total of ten eligible children available and in the normal way a school transport service could have been established, it could not be established because those four children had opted out and accepted a bicycle grant.

There are definite limitations on any excessive promotion of the scheme, because it could in these circumstances—and these circumstances would not be uncommon—have the effect of jeopardising not only the prospects of those children themselves of getting school transport but also the prospects of other children in the immediate locality. Therefore, I think the Deputy will accept the practice adopted by the Department as being the correct one, namely, of offering the scheme, as he himself said, as a last resort as and when we felt it was the only appropriate means of coping with a particular case.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Mar 1976