I will be obliged if the Chair will tell me if we can have a sharing of our time this evening.
Private Members' Business. - School Transport: Motion.
The position is that if a Deputy takes less than the allotted time the Chair must move to the other side.
Deputies on the Government side may not be too anxious to contribute.
We had a gentleman's agreement last week and it worked fine.
Deputies Leydon and Reynolds should allow Deputy O'Rourke proceed with the business.
They are here to encourage me and that is why there are so many other Members on this side.
The Chair does not think the Deputy needs much encouragement.
I move:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Government for the present chaos and confusion in the school transport scheme and for inflicting hardship on many thousands of families.
At the outset I am anxious to state that the present school transport scheme which the Minister is endeavouring to operate is not working and cannot be made operable under its present terms. The indications today are that it is not operable. I learned that from the many phone calls I made and from representations made to me about the scheme. It is just four months since the Minister assumed control of the Department of Education and in that time the House debated the subject of school transport formally on two occasions and informally on one occasion. Therefore, for the third time in four months the House is formally debating the question of school transport. There must be something wrong if Members must constantly refer to the anomalies in the scheme, ask for relief, get half-baked satisfaction but are still left with a patchwork scheme. In four months the issue has gone from disbelief to bewilderment, to confusion and to total chaos as exists today.
The Minister may choose to repeat her old record using her worn out needle of looking back and saying that the Government are the goodies and Fianna Fáil are the baddies, that it was Fianna Fáil that started all this. In my view it is immaterial who thought up the scheme. What is of concern is who is implementing it. I can tell the House that such a scheme would not have been implemented under Fianna Fáil. We would not have implemented a patchwork, half-baked daft scheme such as the Minister is implementing. I am sure the country is tired of hearing about school transport. I am tired referring to it in the House. The Minister may tell us that CIE are tired of it, that she is tired of it and that the Department are tired of it but we must consider the feelings of parents and children who are involved in this. They are more than tired; they are fed up with it, confused and annoyed.
The current mess over school transport is the result of massive ministerial mishandling of the matter. The Minister is succeeding through her school transport scheme in settling household against household in rural Ireland, street against street and village against village. I am aware of rural areas where neighbours are not talking and where children are not talking because some are being taken on school buses and others left behind. It is an appalling situation that CIE are being forced through instructions from the Department of Education to refuse admission on buses to children even if it is raining heavily or is very cold. Many of those children will have to sit their leaving certificate, intermediate certificate and group certificate examinations within a few weeks. There is something rotten in the country if such children are refused permission to use the school transport system.
The scheme was never investigated. It was a case of bureaucratic memos placed on the Minister's desk and the contents of them accepted by her. That has led to the bungling and blundering we have had in relation to the scheme. It is easy to appear on television, go on radio or meet the media about other educational matters which are valid, topics such as sex bias in education, private schools versus public schools and so on but they are only academic questions because if children cannot get to school the other issues do not arise. There are thousands of second level students, many of them preparing for State examinations, whose parents cannot afford the school transport fees. Many of those parents are medical card holders but their children do not qualify for free transport.
I am not happy with the medical card being used as the criterion of need. However, the Minister used that criterion to judge those in need. When the liaison officers and other agencies refused to decide on who should be entitled to use the school buses the Minister adopted the medical card criterion. It is distinctly odd and strange that up to 2,000 children of medical card holders cannot get on a school bus. The answer I expect from the Minister, from CIE and the Department is that those students are not attending their "appropriate school centre". That "appropriate school centre" was as a result of the catchment boundaries which were drawn up many years ago.
Over the years there have been variations of those boundaries but they were never formalised. When I speak about catchment boundaries I know what I am talking about. The people of County Mayo will be delighted to know that Deputy Kenny approves of the present school transport chaos. In my constituency, Longford-Westmeath, there are many children who have been told that they are not attending their appropriate school centre. I have letters from the parents of those children and in 75 per cent of the cases the appropriate school centre is almost two miles further away than the school they are attending. That is a daft situation.
The Minister must accept that the use of the medical card criterion has led to awful confrontations and feelings of inadequacy by children and parents. I always thought that medical ethics dictated that the holding of a medical card was a private matter for the recipient, the doctor and the bureaucracy, the Midland Health Board, that handled such applications.
The holding of medical cards now has become a matter of public knowledge, ribaldry and comment. Children can be cruel, and I know of instances of children standing up in buses and saying "Hurrah, his parent has a medical card and mine has not. We are better than you". These comments are going on throughout rural Ireland. It is not the Minister's fault that she lives in Dublin. It is her abode, but I want to make it clear that she does not know, and neither do her civil servants, with respect to them, what is happening throughout rural Ireland.
We are back to the old poor law system under which the recipient of poor law benefits went along, cap in hand, to get his due, whether it be the bowl of porridge or something else. You were poor and everybody knew you were poor. It reminds me of Marie Antoinette who said "Let them eat cake". It is a poor reflection of the Just Society policy of Fine Gael which was to have been introduced.
I do not agree with the medical card criterion, but it is set out. How can the Minister justify saying a person is in need if his parents hold a medical card and then saying he is not in need because under some rule of years ago he is deemed to be living in a catchment boundary facility area? That is wrong. You are in need if you live on one side of a street and not in need if you live on another side. This will have to be looked into fully.
I am sure the Minister and her officials would say that the children should change schools. Children cannot change schools in the middle of a school term. I submit that it is not feasible. In any period of a course in a second-level school children cannot change schools because the idea is that in year one the child builds up a rapport with the teacher and the staff and the other pupils. Of course education is not just sitting and learning. Learning and teaching are a two-way process. It is continuing and developmental. As the child develops so does her relationship with the teacher.
Therefore, the Minister cannot say that children should change schools and that the problem would be solved. It will not all be solved because it is not educationally desirable that a child should change schools at any period of second-level education.
The people of Ireland are annoyed. The people who pay the fares are annoyed. Those who thought they were exempt because they held medical cards are cross and annoyed when they find that because they are living in a catchment boundary facility they are not included. Above all, the medical card holders and their children are annoyed because they are being pointed at and the world knows their income and what they are or are not entitled to.
In the Upper House recently it has become fashionable for people to read out correspondence they have received and to have it on record, saying how annoyed and frightened people have expressed themselves to be in correspondence. All public representatives receive many letters, some of them abusive, some of a happy nature but some of a very sad nature. I have here a file of more than 200 letters. Since I came into the spokesmanship on education and since the change in the school transport system, I decided that this was not an issue easy to be resolved, that it would not be solved just by regulations sent from Dublin to rural Ireland. I decided I would keep a file on the cases. I shall not give the names, naturally, because that would be a breach of confidence, but I will give them privately to the Minister.
In front of me I have a very sad case. Last night I visited the parent concerned so that I would have my full facts before I stood up here. It is the case of a woman who has a daughter without a left arm. That woman has attached the medical certificate, signed by her local doctor, which the child submitted to CIE, to the Department, everywhere it should have been submitted. The medical evidence is clear and concise. The doctor's opinion is that the child will be disabled for attending school unless she gets school transport. The woman writes: "Just a note to thank you for the work you have put in for me but"— I will not give the child's name —"was put off the bus this morning, Tuesday, 10 May and all the children on the bus laughed out at her". That child, physically disabled, produced the medical certificate and that is what happened on Tuesday last.
Disgraceful.
There is something wrong with a Government that would allow that to happen when there is a provision for that child to obtain school transport. I will read the bones of a second letter to the House. Inter alia it states that the writer is a widow. Her only means of income is a non-contributory pension. One of her children is doing the intermediate certificate and the other is doing the leaving certificate. Both are girls. She says that because she is half a mile from being within catchment boundary facilities she is being asked for the fee. She asks if she will go to the St. Vincent de Paul Society to get it.
Where can she get the £50? She is a woman with two children living on a widow's non-contributory pension. She is the holder of a medical card, but because of this harebrained catchment boundary facility clause she cannot qualify. I telephoned her neighbour and I was told that one of the children is doing intermediate certificate and one doing leaving certificate this year and both have to walk. They have been walking to school in the last two weeks, between four and six miles. There is no use in the Minister saying here that this scheme will work. I heard the Minister on the "Today Tonight" programme, a programme to which I was not invited. Various people from her constituency had said they were unable to pay the fee. It was the day on which the Minister had made the announcement about the medical cards. She looked out of the television and said: "I would like to tell those people that they need have no fear, they will be included under the scheme".
Will the children in my file of cases be included? That file is of letters from people who cannot afford to pay the fee. I do not want another half-baked amelioration because it will do nothing to solve the problem. There are children who in two or three weeks will be sitting at desks in large and small school halls to compete in State examinations to do between five and eight subjects. I am not too far from my youth or my teen years not to remember the stress, strain and tension young people are subject to, particularly in the competitive world we live in. They know how important it is that they pass their examinations, how important it is to their future and to their hopes for jobs. Yet they have this hanging over them, and how can that be right in a very testing time? Even in a tranquil environment these children are under considerable stress. I have a child doing a State examination this year and I know what he is going through. I try to make things easy for him in every way I can by trying to understand his problems. How can these children face their school examinations while being burdened by outside worries?
The Minister is a woman and a mother. She knows what she is doing is not right. She should forget what her civil servants and advisers are saying because they are living in Dublin and do not know what is happening in rural Ireland. I am not speaking for the whole of rural Ireland because many other Deputies behind me will back up my case.
Something will have to be done about this school transport scheme. My attitude is not destructive. I am on record as saying, and I also said it on the radio last Wednesday, that I and my party are prepared to look at a reasonable transport scheme but we are not prepared, and neither is the country, to put up with this farcical scheme which is not operable. When the Minister, takes her head out of the sand she will see this scheme collapsing in ruins around her feet.
I know CIE operatives are not happy with this scheme. In a written reply to Deputy H. Byrne last week the Minister said that to date the school transport scheme had brought in £1 million. I realise the Minister may not have the information to hand but perhaps tomorrow evening she will let me know what the CIE overtime costs in working out this scheme have been, taking into account constant changes, fluctuations, ministerial orders and so on. I can imagine the frustration felt by those people who are trying to operate a scheme they know is not operable.
We are prepared to look at a scheme which is reasonable and is seen to be fair in its application. This is the strongest point that has come back to me from the people I have spoken to. The medical card holders do not like this scheme and the people who are paying are very cross, but all are prepared to look at a scheme which is seen to be fair, but they are not willing to look at a scheme which is discriminatory in every way.
I would like to mention Irish-speaking schools. This subject has been discussed here before but I wish to bring it to the Minister's attention tonight. Heretofore the Irish-speaking schools had an area of positive discrimination in their favour by way of a transport subsidy. This has disappeared. In the light of the recent study which has issued on the future of the Irish language — and the Minister said she was very interested in this study and its implications for the young — this scheme has done a great disservice to the people who send their children to all-Irish schools. Therefore this transport subsidy for Irish-speaking schools should be continued. I understand that the withdrawing of that subsidy is having drastic consequences on the projected intake of students. I know of one such school, Scoil Mhuire, where the Minister's colleague, Deputy Dukes, was once a pupil. The projected intake of pupils into this school has dramatically fallen. If that trend were repeated in all the Irish schools around the country — there are only 14, and that includes the Gaeltacht areas — the enrolment rate in future years will rapidly diminish. People might ask why we should discriminate positively in favour of those schools. I see the Irish language as being worth positive discrimination. If we do not discriminate positively in their favour we may forget about Irish for young people.
I have spoken to parents whose children attend these schools. They are sending their children there because they want the Irish traditions and the Irish language kept alive. Very often they send their children to these schools at great cost to themselves, and the transport subsidy went but a very small way towards alleviating these transport costs. That subsidy was an act of faith in the future of the Irish language. I ask the Minister to look positively at this area and to try to change this disastrous Government policy.
People might ask what can we do about the school transport system. We can take one positive action. I am not diverging from what I said last February, March, yesterday or today. Then as now my policy is the same. This scheme is not operable. The Minister should declare an amesty, bring the children to school for the remaining few weeks of this term, and let there be no discrimination. When the school term ends there will be a three-month summer recess. The Minister, her Minister of State, her civil servants and some of the ordinary people whose children are involved in this tug-of-war should sit down and discuss this scheme, and then work out a new scheme. My party and I would be prepared to look constructively at such a scheme.
I would like to sound a note of warning to the Minister: her colleagues are deserting her when this matter is discussed at branch meetings. They say "it has nothing to do with us. Mrs. Hussey in Dublin has made these regulations". I am waiting to hear what a particular Deputy might say in this debate, because I know exactly what he said at a branch meeting — I have a copy of his speech here. It is not fair what her colleagues are doing to the Minister, but as this campaign has escalated and as the inequalities have come to light, some of her Deputies are cutting and running and saying it is the Minister Deputy Hussey's fault. That is quite true. I say the sooner the Minister puts her house in order and indeed the whole party in order the better for them.
The club of eight has gone to the club of 18, to the club of 28, to the club of 68, expanding very quickly.
To come back to the debate in hand, which is the school transport charges, I would think the best action the Minister could take now would be to say truthfully — and mind you she will not lose face for being truthful; I will repeat she will not lose face for facing up to the fact — that we have all made mistakes from time to time. Indeed, I have made many and I know I will make an awful lot more. I was going to say I hope they will not be ministerial ones; I hope they will be in my capacity as a Minister but that they will not be mistakes. I would recommend to the Minister that she own up to the fact that she has made a gigantic ministerial mess of the school transport issue in Ireland today. Unfortunatley, it is one that will be hung around her neck like an albatross for some considerable time to come. I am not taking positive delight in that; I am merely stating a plain fact, particularly in the light of the scuttling of the ship that has been taking place in the last week as the crisis has mounted and as it has become so obvious that the scheme is non-operative. Whether she does it tonight or tomorrow night, she should look into her own heart, listen to some ordinary people, mostly from rural Ireland and say to herself: "The scheme is not working. What can I do immediately to alleviate the situation?" I say she can take the boys and girls trudging the roads of Ireland and put them back on the bus.
What about a suggestion to resign? That would be one solution?
That would stop immediately the ministerial bungling that has gone on. Secondly, she might say to herself: "I will work out a scheme in the relative tranquility and peace of summertime". I would recommend that she would then put before the parents an alternative scheme. Mind you parents, in the perspective of what has happened in the last four months, are anxious to see a correct, fair scheme implemented. I say to the Minister that the scheme is not working. It has been ministerially mishandled. It has all been blundering and bungling. Forget the school transport scheme, bring out an equitable scheme of school transport, when I shall be prepared to look at it, be constructive and fair in my appraisal of it.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Eireann" and substitute the following:—
"approves of the arrangements made by the Government in connection with the imposition of school transport charges to alleviate any hardship which might be caused to families by such charges."
Before I begin my wider reply I should like to mention a case which was brought up by Deputy O'Rourke and say that since 1973 there have been special arrangements for transport for handicapped children when they are brought to the attention of the Department.
But why did the Minister put them off the bus?
When they are brought to the attention of the Department.
But I have had correspondence from the Minister of State on this personally.
Deputy O'Rourke was not interrupted.
On a point of information, it was brought to the attention of the Department.
The Minister without interruption.
I should like to say also that pupils in Irish-speaking schools are already given transport concessions in that they may not pay any attention to their nearest school if the nearest school is through English, in other words, they are exempt from that——
That is an untruth.
Pupils in all-Irish schools are eligible for transport if they live more than three miles from the nearest all-Irish school, but they pay the transport charges like other children. However, they have already a concession among all the other considerable concessions which all-Irish schools enjoy.
I should say at the outset that the Government totally reject the allegation in this motion that there is chaos and confusion in the school transport scheme——
The Minister should come to the Finn Valley in Donegal where she will see 250 angry parents——
——or that there has been inflicted through this scheme——
Would the Minister please be allowed continue?
Unfortunately the Minister was not there.
——hardship on thousands of families. The motion resounds with the overstatement and hyperbole which so often accompanies assertions made by people who see things as they would wish them to be rather than as they really are.
We see the children on the roads.
It reflects on the part of its proposers an inability to come to terms not merely with the facts of life——
I know my facts of life very well.
Deputy O'Rourke had her say and was not interrupted.
And she was telling the truth.
It reflects on the part of its proposers an inability to come to terms not merely with the facts of life regarding the parlous financial state into which Fianna Fáil when in office led this country but also with the simple fact regarding the school transport scheme.
On a point of order, could the Minister inform us who is in Government. We are sick, sore and tired of listening to the Government blame Fianna Fáil for everything.
Acting Chairman
There is no point of order there.
I have no desire to cover old ground but apparently Deputies opposite are insisting on doing so. Indeed, the ground in relation to the introduction of charges for school transport has already been well covered in this House. We had a lengthy debate on the issue during Private Members' Business on 15 and 16 February last. The Dáil has had the further opportunity of explanation and elucidation through the medium of some 59 questions both of a general and particular nature. However, faced with the ever-changing stances adopted by the Opposition in this matter I have little option but to set out once again what has now become a substantial portion of the record of this Dáil. I make no apology for doing so even though Deputies may not like to listen to it. The Estimates for the Public Services for 1983——
(Interruptions.)
I know it does not make pleasant listening but Deputies must listen.
We heard it all before.
(Interruptions.)
Acting Chairman
Would Deputies allow the Minister to continue. It is a serious debate and let us keep it that way, please.
I would like to remind the Opposition that I did not utter one word during the contribution of Deputy O'Rourke.
The Estimates for the Public Services for 1983, as published on 18 November 1982, provided £28.2 million for the operation of the school transport services. While this is, in any terms, a substantial sum, the provision had to be measured against an outturn of over £28 million in 1982 and against the fact that, at the time this provision was made, it was known that to continue the service in 1983 on the same basis as 1982, would cost an estimated £33.6 million. This resulted in an underprovision of £5.4 million. There is no question of this underprovision being accidental. The then Fianna Fáil Minister for Education, Deputy G. Brady, in the honest and forthright manner we have come to expect from him in Dáil Éireann, issued a public statement on the same day that the Estimates were published. In this public statement he outlined the decisions of the then Fianna Fáil Administration regarding school transport and I quote once again:
There will be no charge introduced for pupils of national schools eligible for free transport in accordance with the school transport regulations. The cost of the scheme for primary and post-primary schools has, however, been growing to such an extent that measures need to be taken with regard to it. Since no alteration is contemplated on the range of the service, the measures required to control cost must involve the introduction of a charge in the case of second level school pupils. Consideration is being given to the question of the arrangements to be made for the implementation of such charge. It is contemplated that such arrangements would take the form of the issue of a season ticket, that there would be a lower rate for junior pupils and that a concession would be made to take account of the circumstances of members of large families.
This oft-quoted statement is beginning to assume the character of Biblical reference on questions relating to the introduction of charges for school transport and well it might. It is a fundamentally honest statement, without prevarication or equivocation. Attempts were made during previous debates on this issue to describe the decision of the Fianna Fail Government to introduce charges in respect of school transport as provisional, or not final, or subject to ratification. These claims do not stand up to examination in the light of that statement and of the shortfall of £5.4 million in the provision made for the operation of the school transport service in the Estimates for the Public Services, 1983.
The accusation has been made in this House, that, on coming into office on 15 December 1982, the Government — and I quote: "put on the shirt of the previous administration and did not don its own clothes"; that it was devoid of policies of its own in this area. Nothing could be further from the truth. During the election campaign we made no secret of the fact that we would have to accept the general outlines of the published Estimates and that we were seeking after a substantial reduction in the current budget deficit. We inherited, from the previous administration, a deficit of £5.4 million in the provision for the operation of school transport services and we did not differ in the general approach of endeavouring to maintain the range of the service. Given this approach there was no option but to seek a contribution from the users of the service as a means of making up the shortfall in the financial provision. The charges introduced were along the same general lines as those announced in the statement of 18 November 1982. What characterised the policies of the Government, however, and what made them different from those of Fianna Fáil, was the concern reflected in them for the less-well-off members of our society, for the people for whom the payment of school transport charges for their children would have involved hardship and difficulty. Hence the provision made initially to exempt from the charges pupils in the senior cycle attending their appropriate centre and whose parents or legal guardians were holders of medical cards, and the further extension on 2 March 1983 to junior cycle pupils of this concession once experience had been gained of the operation of the scheme and following consultation with the concerned organisations and agencies. I know — and I should like to say this here — that Deputy O'Rourke, the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Education, is a concerned and compassionate person, but it is almost beyond belief, that as representative of a party which, when in office, made no provision whatsoever to exempt the children of the less-well-off from the school transport charges, she should have the temerity to put her name to a motion condemning the Government for "inflicting hardship on many thousands of families".
The Deputy has on more than one occasion voiced her criticism of the use of the medical card as an indicator of hardship. I would certainly agree with her that the medical card system was not designed specifically to deal with school transport cases, but is she alleging that the medical card is not an indicator of hardship? Does she feel that a medical card is too easily obtained and that people are benefiting not only from health services, but also, incidentally, from school transport services——
On a point of order, the Minister is putting things into my mouth that I never said or did. She is answering her own doubts.
Acting Chairman
Would the Minister be allowed to continue, please. There is no point of order.
On a point of order——
Acting Chairman
The Deputy disagreed with the Minister; it is not a point of order.
On a point of order, am I allowed a point of order?
Acting Chairman
No, it is not a point of order.
One is allowed it in any town hall in Ireland.
Acting Chairman
It is not a point of order.
Did the Chair hear my point of order?
Acting Chairman
The Deputy disagreed with the Minister's views. That is not a point of order.
No, I disagreed with the Minister attributing views to me which are not mine——
Acting Chairman
That is not a point of order.
That is a point of order. In Athlone town hall you would be allowed a point of order.
Acting Chairman
The Minister to continue, please.
Does she feel that a medical card is too easily obtained——
Does the Minister feel it? She should address herself, not me.
——and that people are benefiting not only from health services but also incidentally, from school transport services who would not be justified in obtaining these benefits were some other criterion of hardship employed? Or is she concerned, as she should be, with hardship cases that do not come within the medical card provision and is consciously trying to suggest a means whereby such cases can be identified and assisted? While I have heard various general statements on the need to employ some criterion of hardship other than the medical card I have yet to hear a concrete and workable suggestion.
She is the Minister.
I can assure the Deputy that the medical card was not adopted without considerable thought, examination and consultation. For one thing the school transport scheme is essentially a rural scheme and it is in rural areas that the possession of medical cards is most widespread. The setting up of a separate scheme of determining hardship, solely for the purposes of the relatively modest contributions required for school transport could certainly not be justified and the costs attendant on any such arrangement would inevitably be reflected in terms of higher charges for school transport for those who had to pay. The application of the medical card concession is carried out with the greatest sensitivity and anonymity. Parents who are entitled to seek this concession on behalf of their children apply in the normal way to the local CIE office enclosing their medical card with the application. All applications are treated with confidentiality and the validation ticket issued to the child of the medical card holder differs in no way from that issued to the child on behalf of whom the requisite charge has been paid. And that is as it should be. Let me put the Deputy beyond doubt as to my position in this matter. If it can be established that there is a more appropriate criterion of hardship than the possession of a medical card and if such a criterion can meet the two requirements of (i) not burdening the school transport scheme with extra administrative costs and (ii) seeking to preserve the anonymity of the children who benefit from the concession, then I would have no hesitation about adopting such a criterion.
The Deputy has also voiced her concern about the fact that the medical card concession of which she is so critical has not been extended to pupils availing of what is known as "catchment boundary facilities". This is a topic on which there is a great deal of self-proclaimed and convenient ignorance and examples have been quoted of large and flourishing schools which stand to lose a few pupils to adjacent and less populous centres unless the catchment boundary concession is put on a par with the conditions obtaining for pupils who have full eligibility within the terms of the school transport scheme. In this matter we have to be quite clear what we are talking about. For the purposes of school transport the country is divided into catchment areas, each such area served by its own adequate post-primary centre.
On a point of order, I would have to bring this to your attention, please: the Minister, in a statement which was issued before I had finished speaking, said:
The Deputy has also voiced her concern...
How could she possibly know? I released no script.
How many times has Deputy O'Rourke been on radio and brought the matter up in the Dáil?
(Interruptions.)
Acting Chairman
My reading of it is that the Minister has not said that it was said tonight.
Deputies
On a point of order——
Acting Chairman
It is not a point of order so let the Minister continue, please.
On a point of order, the Minister is reading from a prepared speech just assuming what our spokesperson was going to say tonight.
(Interruptions.)
She is reading from a speech prepared by her officials in the Department.
Assuming what I was going to say. How dare she.
How can she presume, reading from a prepared speech, what our spokesperson was going to say?
Acting Chairman
Would Deputies allow the Minister to continue. Whether Deputies accept my ruling or not, I am ruling that it is not a point of order.
I must accept your ruling but it is a point of order.
On a point of order is Deputy O'Rourke denying that she criticised the medical card publicly and otherwise?
(Interruptions.)
This is a point of order.
Acting Chairman
It is not a point of order. Would Deputies please allow the Minister to continue.
On a further point of order, is it not clear that Deputy O'Rourke voiced her concern previously in public?
As has Deputy Kenny.
(Interruptions.)
Acting Chairman
We could be here all night shouting across the floor. Will Deputies allow the Minister to continue? Could we have some order, please?
These catchment areas were drawn up initially in consultation with the schools' authorities and had regard to distance and traditional patterns of attendance as well as to the economics of school transport and the maintenance of a viable network of post-primary school services. Pupils who live more than three miles from the post-primary centre serving their catchment area are eligible for transport to that centre. As a special concession, pupils who are eligible for school transport, but who choose, for reasons of their own, not to attend the post-primary centre serving their catchment area, but to go instead to the centre serving an adjoining catchment area, are granted what is known as "catchment boundary facility". To avail themselves of this facility such pupils must board the school bus within the catchment area of the centre they are attending. They are themselves responsible and they always have been responsible for getting to such a boarding point and there never has been any question of their using school transport services for this purpose. Once they have got to the catchment area of the centre they are attending, they may be given transport to that centre subject to the payment of a catchment boundary charge of £24 and provided there is spare accommodation on the school bus after all eligible pupils have been served. The medical card concession does not apply to pupils availing themselves of "catchment boundary facilities". It is hardly necessary for me to defend a long-established structure of school transport services, nor to point to the fact that the service was established in the first instance to enable children who would have had difficulty on grounds of distance in making a satisfactory attendance at school, to do so. The service was not and could not be established to assist in the exercise of choice as between one post-primary centre and another. When pupils choose to go to school outside of the centre serving their catchment area, they do so in the knowledge that transport may not be available at all, or that even if they can be accommodated initially as "catchment boundary pupils", their continued transport is not guaranteed as they can be displaced at any time by an increase in the number of eligible pupils using the particular service.
Looking at the "catchment boundary facility" in this light it is perfectly clear why the medical card concession cannot and should not be extended to pupils wishing to avail themselves of the catchment boundary facility. First, the use of the catchment boundary facility is not a necessary prerequisite to ensure a satisfactory attendance at school on the part of pupils who would have difficulty in doing so on grounds of distance. It arises solely from a free choice made by the pupils and their parents not to go to the centre serving the catchment area in which they live, but rather to go to a centre, frequently more distant, serving an adjoining catchment area. Secondly, catchment boundary transport is in itself a concession within the terms of the school transport scheme and is not guaranteed. Should the medical card concession be extended to pupils wishing to avail themselves of the catchment boundary facility, the conditions would certainly arise where there would be pupils entitled to claim the medical card concession and for whom no catchment boundary transport would be available. Thirdly, such an extension would clearly raise extremely difficult problems of priorities, where pupils in excess of the spare capacity of the service are applying for catchment boundary transport. Should pupils entitled to avail themselves of the medical card concession be given priority over pupils on whose behalf the appropriate charge must be paid? I need not comment on the threat such an arrangement would pose to the anonymity of the arrangements attending the medical card concession. At present priority in catchment boundary transport is given in accordance with seniority within the post-primary school course and this is seen to be the most equitable system of allocating a restricted number of places. With a "medical card" concession in operation the conflicting claims of medical card status and seniority would not be subject to ready resolution. All in all there would appear to me to be several sound and convincing reasons for the medical card concession not being extended to catchment boundary transport and it is not proposed to grant such an extension. I concede that this can give rise to temporary hardship in a small number of existing cases but this arises as a direct consequence of the deliberate choice made regarding the post-primary centre attended.
I am proposing to leave the detailed reply to the allegations of chaos and confusion in the school transport system to my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Donal Creed, and to deal with them only very summarily in this part of the debate. Before doing so, however, I think it necessary to point to the poverty of ideas on the Opposition benches regarding the entire question of school transport charges. In a recent interview on "Women Today" the proposer of this motion accepted, I am glad to note, the introduction of charges for school transport.
On a point of order, that is an untruth. I would ask that a transcript of "Women Today" be brought to the House in order to have that statement refuted.
Acting Chairman
That is not a point of order. The Minister must be allowed continue.
It is a point of order.
Acting Chairman
I am ruling that it is not.
The Minister has stated that on the programme, "Women Today", I accepted the introduction of charges for school transport. A lady from Wexford phoned into the programme. I played back a tape of it this afternoon.
Acting Chairman
The Deputy is being disorderly.
The Minister has told an untruth about me.
The Deputy thinks she is still in the classroom.
In the course of this interview she appealed to me to suspend the present system of charges and to sit down during the relative tranquillity of summer time and work out a more equitable system of charges to go into operation in the school year 1983-84. She appeared to see some merit in a suggestion regarding the possibility of imposing a smaller charge on all pupils throughout the country. I cannot help wondering whether the Deputy was seriously implying that we should now abolish the medical card concession and evolve a system whereby the better off would be further subsidised by the subscriptions of those less well able to pay. Or perhaps she was considering that we should now extend the charges to pupils in primary schools eligible for free transport under the terms of the school transport scheme, despite her own expressed concern and that of her colleagues regarding the Constitutional obligations resting on me as Minister for Education, on behalf of the State, in the matter of provision for education.
I can assure her that neither of these two options will be considered by me, nor by the Government in which I serve. As to the giving of an amnesty in respect of the current charges, I would not in any circumstances put myself in the position of offering such a gratuitous insult to the many thousands of people who recognised and accepted the necessity for the introduction of such charges in the interest of maintaining the school transport scheme, and who voiced this recognition in the most articulate way possible, not by public marches and protests, but by making valid applications for continued school transport for their children. There is no question of a suspension or an amnesty in relation to such charges, nor could there be without establishing a charge for the coming term of some three times that which is currently in operation. I am afraid that Deputy O'Rourke was merely giving voice to the freedom enjoyed by Deputies in Opposition from the financial arithmetic of the situation and indulging in that well-known dalliance of Fianna Fáil with financial rectitude which might be expressed as "Lord make me good, but not yet".
Those who have used the school transport service in the winter term and did not pay the appropriate charge — and I am glad to say that this is a very small proportion — have a debt to clear just as surely as they would have if they had not paid their ESB bill or their television licence. This, however, is being considered as a matter separate from the arrangements which obtain in the current summer term.
Under these latter arrangements a validation ticket has been issued to all pupils on whose behalf an appropriate application was made by the due date and only pupils who have the appropriate validation ticket together with their travel permit are granted facilities on school transport services. This position must now be very clear to all concerned. If any confusion or chaos exists in regard to these arrangements, it cannot be attributed to the Government. Córas Iompair Éireann, who act as agents for my Department in the matter of school transport, distributed application forms in connection with charges for the summer term to all post-primary schools on 1 March 1983. The deadline set for the receipt of applications was 9 April. In consultation with my Department, CIE extended this deadline to 27 April and warned that transport would not be available to those without validation tickets after May 6. This information was conveyed through advertisements in the public press, on radio and on television, and all school bus drivers were instructed by CIE to remind the pupils travelling on the buses of the terms of the notice. Nobody can dispute that every possible effort was made to bring the arrangements to the attention of those parents concerned and to the extent that they disregarded the notice and neglected to submit valid applications on or before the extended date, they have, unfortunately, only themselves to blame. The consequences of not obtaining a validation ticket were clearly and unambiguously stated. I have to state that CIE have made every possible effort to facilitate parents who wished to submit applications even after the announced deadline and it is still open to parents who have not applied to do so even at this late stage.
That is not true. They have sent the cards but they have not received the tickets. The Minister is indulging in terminological inexactitudes.
Acting Chairman
The Minister has only three minutes left. She should be allowed continue without interruption.
Will I be allowed injury time?
The yellow card.
The point is that the parents have sent the cards but have not received the tickets.
Acting Chairman
The Minister must be allowed continue without interruption. The way she is being interrupted is disgraceful.
I invite her to come to the Finn Valley where there are 250 very angry parents without anyone to defend them.
She is totally incorrect in saying that I made any reference to primary schools in this context.
The local offices of CIE have arranged to process applications so as to ensure the issue of validation tickets with the minimum delay and on receipt of such tickets pupils may again avail themselves of school transport facilities. With regard to the coming autumn term the same scale of charges will apply and arrangements are in train whereby the charge may be paid in two moieties, the first moiety, comprising half of the appropriate charge must be paid on or before 16 June. Pupils on whose behalf the medical card concession is being claimed must also submit their application by that date. The school transport services for the autumn term will be organised on the basis of such applications received.
The details of the charges in respect of school transport were first announced by me on 23 December 1982. Since then they have been the subject of considerable publicity and debate. They have not been altered. The only amendment since the first announcement has been the extension of the concession of free transport to eligible junior cycle pupils attending their appropriate centre whose parents/legal guardians are holders of a medical card, a concession previously enjoyed by senior cycle pupils in similar circumstances. The Government have exercised both consideration and forebearance in the introduction of the scheme of charges for school transport. It was clear from the beginning that once a charge is introduced anybody who fails to pay this charge or who is not exempt from it forfeits the right to continued use of the service. It would be totally unacceptable, in consideration of the many parents who have paid the school bus charges, to permit the continued use of the service by those pupils on whose behalf the charges have not been paid. To fail to take action in a matter of this kind is a recipe for public discontent and would lead to the type of confusion which the Opposition allege. Nevertheless, the Government, having regard to the fact that the charges had been newly introduced, desisted from taking action during the winter term in respect of pupils on whose behalf valid applications had not been made. They considered it appropriate, however, after due and extensive notice had been given, to take action in the course of the current summer term. Pupils on whose behalf an appropriate application has not been made will not be facilitated on the service from the commencement of the autumn term.
On a point of information, could I inquire whether the information given in relation to charges, applications made, money not paid and medical cards presented has been given to the officials of the Minister's Department by CIE? I am trying to elicit information. In my constituency, the money, the application forms et cetera——
There is no such thing as a point of order. The Minister is about to conclude. She should have concluded by now.
Unfortunately, there were many interruptions earlier on. The conditions are clearly specified and made known to the concerned parties by precisely the same arrangements which existed prior to the introduction of school transport charges and in addition by a deal of public advertisement.
(Interruptions.)
I am surprised at Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn as an ex-Minister.
I would submit in the circumstances that any chaos and confusion which exists in respect of school transport exists solely in the minds of the proposers of the motion.
On a point of order, I have to stitch into the record of the House in order to protect myself that there are several untruths attributed to me in this document.
That is not a point of order.
I am very pleased to have this opportunity of supporting the motion moved by Deputy O'Rourke, the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Education, which states:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Government for the present chaos and confusion in the school transport scheme and for inflicting hardship on many thousands of families.
The Minister concluded her speech by stating:
I would submit in the circumstances that any chaos and confusion which exists in respect of school transport exists solely in the minds of the proposers of the motion.
I am disappointed that the Minister has not had the courtesy to stay to listen to this debate and this is one of the reasons we find ourselves in this situation today. I would address my remarks to my two Wexford colleagues opposite and ask them whether there is confusion or chaos in Wexford.
The only confusion in Wexford is concerted by Deputy Byrne and his colleagues. Fianna Fáil are creating confusion in Wexford, deliberately using children like the Nazis used their children. The Opposition are descending to Nazi tactics in Wexford.
I would much prefer if the Deputy did not use that word here. Deputy Byrne to continue.
Ask Deputy Byrne the tactics he resorted to in Taghmon.
A phone message came to my notice a few minutes ago to the effect that all hell is breaking loose in Taghmon over the school bus charges.
Congratulations on the anarchy tactics.
Anarchist.
Why are we called to order while those on the other side are not?
I am asking for order.
Deputy Doyle has the freedom of the House.
She has not. I have no intention of being dictated to by Deputy Gallagher or anyone else.
Deputy Doyle has not once been called to order.
This is a very serious subject and if the standard of debate and contribution is not improved I will adjourn the House. That would be the handiest way out of it.
This motion echoes the sentiments of every reasonable thinking person and only those who have no concern for children, parents or education could oppose it.
The hypocrisy of it.
For God's sake.
I would appeal to Opposition Deputies and Deputy Doyle. That is Deputy Doyle's third interruption. I am treating you as a lady and I hope you will react in like manner and keep silent.
There were as many interruptions on the far side earlier.
I was not in the Chair. I want to hear Deputy Byrne.
The Minister put down an amendment which states:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:—
"approves of the arrangements made by the Government in connection with the imposition of school transport charges to alleviate any hardship which might be caused to families by such charges."
This amendment is not honest and is certainly not accurate It shows an arrogant disregard for the rights of young people. Those who support the amendment will have a lot to answer for.
I know many rural Deputies who share my views and the views put forward in our motion. I have heard members of the Minister's party who claim to support our motion, perhaps not in so many words but certainly in its tone and sentiment and they say they will use every opportunity to defeat this inequity. The Minister should be warned that members of the parliamentary party are frustrated by the original stupid decision and may give vent to this frustration tomorrow night. Remember the embarrassing defeats of the Government just two weeks ago. Their own people let them down. They were tired of the "bully boy" antics of the Government. I will be keeping a very close eye on my three Wexford colleagues on the Fine Gael benches who I know agree with me in denouncing this amendment. I will be interested, as will the people of Wexford, to note the direction they will take when they vote. Will they vote for a continuation of the charges? Will they vote to deny children the opportunity to get second level education?
I am supporting the motion. The scheme to impose tranport charges was introduced by the Government on Christmas Eve, 1982. Christmas is usually a time of enjoyment for children but this time it was a total disaster. The scheme was introduced outside the Dáil in the hope that it would be forgotten when the Dáil resumed. I say the scheme will never be forgotten. The Minister will be known as the Minister for Education who hated little children. She will be remembered as the Minister who was bullied by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Alan Dukes——
What about Fianna Fáil's Book of Estimates?
I ask the Deputy to allow the Deputy in possession to continue without interruption.
The scheme has had disastrous results. It applied from January 1983. Pupils attending school in their own catchment area were charged £14 per term and pupils attending school outside their catchment area were charged £24 per term. The charges were collected in a haphazard manner: some paid and others did not. Some families paid £50 for the first term, while others paid nothing. Yet, the same service was provided for all.
As a result of a motion put down by Fianna Fáil, the Minister began to see the stupidity of her action. She saw the light of day and changed the scheme but unfortunately she still insisted on charges. Refunds had to be paid to parents who are the holders of medical cards and whose children attended schools within their catchment boundaries. Parents who were the holders of medical cards thought their children would be included and this led to confusion. Confusion is the hallmark of this scheme. All refunds have not yet been made. In the Easter term all children were taken on the buses, including those who had not paid. Then, the Government issued a "high noon" ultimatum on Monday, 9 May. The children of the nation were to be denied access to the buses and to education. There was more confusion. Some pupils got on the buses, some did not, some were ordered off and general chaos ensued. The scenes at crossroads reminded us of the hedge school days, with timid, innocent children scurrying into hiding in embarrassment——
I would remind Deputy Farrelly that this is no joke.
The Minister by her immovable approach has provoked divisions within families and within groups of pupils.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Byrne, without interruption from either side.
The Minister has provoked divisions within families and within groups of pupils. They hurl insults at one another, referring to pupils whose parents have medical cards as "spongers". This type of activity is disastrous and our educational system can well do without it.
This is the exam term. Pupils doing their leaving certificate examination are tense and uptight. In some of the most important weeks in their lives they are worried and upset and the additional strain of not knowing if they can go to school is the killer blow. Thousands of pupils and families are affected. Many pupils live more than ten miles from their school and their parents cannot afford the transport charges.
I ask the Minister of State, as I would ask the Minister if she were here, what are the pupils to do? Are they to forego doing their leaving certificate after five years of struggle, hardship and commitment? Are these pupils to be thrown on the scrap heap? In a few months those pupils who have been prevented from doing their leaving certificate examination will have to compete with students who could afford to do their examination. It is easy to know who will be the winners.
Tell them that at Taghmon cumann.
I ask Deputy Doyle to be quiet. We are not in Wexford now, we are in Dáil Éireann.
The Minister is setting child against child, parent against parent and, above all, is denying the children the opportunity to education. This is all to satisfy the Minister and the Minister for Finance. He told the Minister for Education to get the money, irrespective of how she got it.
Last week in reply to a question the Minister told me that £1 million had been collected in school transport charges. Collection of that money has caused more agony than any money collected in the history of this State. In 1968 Fianna Fáil, recognising that every pupil is entitled to second level education, introduced the concept of free education. Since then every child has had the opportunity of attending a second-level school. Before 1968 only the better-off could go to second-level schools: now we are back again in that situation. This achievement by the Government has brought in £1 million but how many millions have been wasted? The Government spent almost £1 million providing advisers and personal staff for their benefit in an exercise in jobs for the boys. In these hard times could they not forego that luxury and let every child have an equal opportunity of competing for jobs?
Nowadays children finish their national school education at 12 years of age. It is well known that many children cannot go to second-level schools because they cannot afford it. What do these children do when they leave school at 12 years? Do they look for a job? What do the Government suggest that these children should do? Children are obliged by law to attend school until they are 15 years but they cannot afford to go because they are poor. Thus, they break the law. Is it school or jail for those children? Last Monday week in Taghmon, County Wexford, because parents refused to pay transport charges, their children were denied transport to schools in Wexford or Adamstown. A school bus went to Adamstown vocational school with two pupils on board. Other school buses went to Wexford with ten pupils and fewer.
Only ten Fine Gaelers in Wexford.
That is right. Buses being paid for by the State without anybody on them are travelling great distances and pupils are huddled together at crossroads in the rain with only the prospect of home and the leaving certificate looming in the near future. The parents decided to take the discriminated children to the local national school. The principal was sympathetic but told them there was no room in the inn.
How can those pupils face the leaving certificate? What happens to those who have paid for both terms? Since there are so many who have not paid anything it can hardly be regarded as fair. The people in Taghmon and the surrounding areas would accept a reasonable scheme which would be applied across the board. Our party agree with this. Our policy is that all children will have the opportunity of second level education.
I was handed a letter before the debate saying it was felt that pupils doing public examinations, particularly the leaving certificate, should not be left on the road. State examinations begin on 8 June. Today, pupils who intend to do those examinations were put off the buses 13 miles from their school. Does the Minister consider this is fair? Do Government members consider it fair that those pupils should be denied the opportunity of sitting for their leaving certificate at the most important time of their lives? Does the Minister expect those children to walk to school in the rain?
It is hard to believe a scheme could have been introduced with so little compassion for the children who have almost completed their second level courses and cannot now get to school or sit for their examinations. Will the Minister take into account the plight of these children? I would like to hear the Minister of State replying to the statements I have made. It is well known that what I have said tonight about County Wexford is the same throughout the country. There is chaos in relation to transport to every second level school.
Is it the Minister's intention to prevent pupils attending school in order to cut down the number of teachers? What we have heard tonight and what has happened since Christmas seems to have spread right across the board, even into the Department of Agriculture, when the education of girls has been discontinued by the Government.
We have heard about the necessity for education cuts. Fianna Fáil have kept a close eye on the many activities of the Minister. I appeal to her to forget this ridiculous scheme which is divisive and unworkable. It has set parent against parent, pupil against pupil, caused rows at crossroads like we had on fair days. If this is not the Minister's intention, she must react positively.
The Minister of State knows that everything Deputy Mary O'Rourke and I have said is true. It is quite obvious from what the Minister said tonight that she has spent very little time in rural areas. Maybe it is worse in Wexford than in other places but it is pretty bad all over the country. My two colleagues sitting on the Government back benches know as well as I that there will be many pupils ready to sit for examinations who will not now have the opportunity to do so.
(Interruptions.)
I believe that what is being said tonight is hurting a little. I will be most interested to see which direction Deputy Doyle will go tomorrow night. I will not tell the people of Wexford, but I suspect they will be watching. What is to happen to the pupils in Wexford who are denied the opportunity to sit for the leaving certificate and the intermediate certificate? I would like the Minister of State to reply to that question. I can give him the names of several who will not be able to sit for those examinations. I am sure there are so many throughout the country that they will number many thousands.
The Minister must know the scheme is a disaster. Can I appeal to her to climb down off her high horse, accept what is good for the pupils and scrap the scheme. Let us have an amnesty until this term ends, let bygones be bygones. We are prepared to forget that this was a disastrous mistake. The Minister should be big enough to admit this and I believe she would be admired for it.
Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 18 May 1983.