I have given permission to Deputy Bruton to raise the question of whether the amount to be spent on school transport this year is to be more or less than the amount spent under this heading last year.
Adjournment Debate. - School Transport Provision.
I understood that I was being given permission to raise the subject matter of the question concerned.
That is so.
But the question relates to a number of other items in addition to the matter of school transport.
That is so.
But the question relates to a number of other items in addition to the matter of school transport.
My information is that the matter I have referred to is the one that the Deputy was seeking permission to raise.
Obviously, if that is what the Minister has received notice of I cannot raise legitimately other matters at this stage. Although what the Chair has outlined is not what I intended, I shall leave it at that.
We are talking here about school transport for children attending primary schools throughout the country. This is a service that has been in operation for many years and which costs a considerable amount of money. This cost is related, for instance, to the cost of diesel and also to the cost of wages paid to school bus drivers. Obviously, the cost in both these instances will increase in 1981 compared with 1980. Wages will increase in line with the terms of the national understanding. Diesel prices would have increased anyway but the budget, in the case of many vehicles which operate on petrol, has increased the cost in addition to whatever increases might occure in the normal process of the operation of inflation. This situation led me to query the Minister about a number of savings which he proposes to effect in the provision of a number of services which come within the Department of Education but I am interested in particular in the savings proposed under the heading of school transport.
According to the Book of Estimates — Vote 30, subhead D. 3 — the Minister was provided last year with £20,420,100 for school transport. The original provision under this subhead in 1980 was for £16 million but towards the end of the year a further sum of £4,420,100 was provided by way of a Supplementary Estimate. The fact that this money was provided late in the year in the form of a Supplementary Estimate suggests that the £16 million provided originally was insufficient. One would expect that in circumstances in which inflation is of the order of 18 per cent — perhaps less or perhaps more—the provision for school transport in 1981 would have been greater than the relevant provision in 1980, that is assuming there would not be cutbacks in the school transport service or the introduction of some other means of raising money under this heading. However, in the Estimate laid before this House about two weeks ago we find that the provision for school transport is only £20 million or £420,000 less than the amount provided under the same heading last year.
I have endeavoured by way of supplementary questions to ascertain from the Minister the reason for this reduction in the service and whether it is the case that a charge for the service is to be levied. I endeavoured to find out also from him whether the £20 million was less than the amount actually spent last year. There may be a distinction between the amount actually spent and the amount provided. Perhaps the Department, though provided at their request with a total of £20,420,100 did not spend all of the money. In a sense I was giving the Minister the benefit of the doubt by asking him to tell us whether all of the money was spent and, if not, whether the saving was significantly less than the £20 million provided this year in which case the Minister might be able to argue that the reduction this year is not a real reduction. However, the Minister did not answer the question. He satisfied himself by saying that in his view and in the view of his officials the amount spent was sufficient. How can it be sufficient to spend only £20 million this year when it was decided that a similar amount was sufficient last year? These same officials are the ones that the Minister is relying on now for his claim that the additional £420,000 is not necessary this year. I have grave doubts about the whole process of estimation that is being engaged in by Departments and I am fearful that, perhaps, the Departments are being encouraged by Ministers who wish artifically to reduce the Estimate provisions under the various subheads in order to bring about phoney reductions in public spending, in other words, to give figures that are not realistic.
I would draw to the Minister's attention his particularly bad record in this regard. Had he been asked in January of last year the sort of question I am asking him today he would surely have replied that the £16 million that was being provided in the original Estimate was sufficient for school transport for the year whereas it turned out to be £4 million short. He tells us now that £20 million is sufficient in this regard this year although this figure represents a reduction of £420,000 on what was provided last year at his request.
In this situation I wish him to explain, first, why it is estimated that a sum which represents a decrease of £420,000 on last year's figure is sufficient this year and, secondly, I should like him to tell us whether the £20,420,000 provided last year was actually spent and, if not, how much was spent. The Minister may claim that if all the money was not spent last year some of it can be put into account for this year, thereby allowing the provision for this year to be less than would be the case otherwise. I do not believe that that is a legitimate excuse but I am commenting on it in case the Minister should seek to bring in this point as an excuse for the reduction. I will have no opportunity of replying to whatever the Minister may say. The position as I understand it is that in a heading like this any money that is not spent in a given year must be handed back to the Department of Finance. If £20,420,000 was provided last year and only £20 million was spent the balance is not available to the Department of Education this year. That does not apply in the case of grant-in-aid funds but in the case of voted moneys such as this. If the Minister tried to give that as an excuse it would not be a truthful one.
I am raising this matter with a view to getting hard information as to what is really intended, what was spent last year and an honest answer from the Minister backed up by statistics and facts related to experience last year as to whether he can prove that the £20 million provided for school transport this year, which is less than that provided for last year, is sufficient in view of inflation and the cost of running the system.
I must correct Deputy Bruton when he said that the provision for school transport was for primary schools. The provision is for primary and secondary schools. I reiterate what I said already that my officials and I had a look at the school transport scene for 1981. That is the job with which we were charged and we came to the conclusion that an adequate and satisfactory service would cost us £20 million in 1981. We were not involved in examining minutely, as Deputy Bruton wants us to do, what the system cost in 1980. We were concerned with 1981. Deputy Bruton should know that that is what the Book of Estimates is about. It is about 1981. I was amazed, when a Fine Gael Deputy asked me at the end of last year whether what we were voting was money for 1980 rather than 1981, that a Deputy would not know that when we are voting moneys in a specific year we are voting them for that year.
Deputy Bruton seems to have a thing about school transport. I do not know why. He is always exercised about whether we will be able to provide an adequate transport service. I have an idea it may be a guilt complex because the House will remember that he had responsibility as junior Minister in that Department. It was during his consulship that Deputy Richie Ryan, then Minister for Finance, flew his kite about charging for the transport. This created such a bruhaha that Deputy Ryan, who is cute if nothing else, did not mention it any more. It was under that consulship that the Hyland Consultancy were asked to report on school transport. Their report was published and it advocated a charge for the transport. The conclusions of the consultants were presumably along the lines on which Deputy Bruton and his overlord, Deputy Ryan, were thinking at that time.
I will not make reference to the nitpicking aspect of what Deputy Bruton has raised. I will not make any reference to the fact that in all we are providing for education, up on £700 million this year——
Why not answer the questions that I asked?
—— I will not refer to the fact that there were 99 subheads in all my Votes which showed increases. He left those 99 in the desert to nit-pick on the school transport subhead alone.
Cut.
The Deputy should not have made the remarks he did make about my officials and my Department. He said he could not understand how, with the same officials and the same Minister, we could come up with these figures. He said he had great doubts about the whole process of estimating and was unworthy enough to suggest that we were artificially reducing the figures for some nefarious purposes which he did not mention. He used the word "phoney". The only place I see anything phoney with regard to school transport and a stupid mistake in assessment was when Deputy Bruton was in charge of this area. He said that the service would cost a certain amount of money and it cost £2 million less in the particular year. What was Deputy Bruton's purpose in making that estimate at that time?
The Minister was out by £4 million last year.
Was it artificially to increase or puff up the amount of money in this subhead? Was he pretending he would spend more than he actually did. In the Book of Estimates was he misleading the public to that extent, which was about 25 per cent, speaking off the top of my head, at that time? If one wants phoneyness that is phoney indeed.
Deputy Bruton's efforts here to pretend that officials of the Department and I are dishonest in our figures should be condemned by the House. It is a question of do as I say now in my Savonarola role, not do as I did. The figure which may be read in the Book of Estimates of £20 million for school transport for 1981 is one which we arrived at — not claiming infallibility — after all due consideration. I will conclude by saying verb. sap.
How can there be a saving of £420,000?
The Dáil adjourned at 5.20 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 3 February 1981.