(Carlow-Kilkenny): Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a gabháil leis an Cheann Chomhairle gur thug sé cead dom labhairt faoin ábhar seo, faoi chóras scoile nach bhfuil ar fáil ag na phaistí scoile i gCeatharlach. When I first took up the problems of the school bus service as a young principal in 1962 my difficulties were not with CIE but with an ageing parish priest who would not sign the document to let the bus service start. I finish my career on much the same ground, but this time it is Bus Éireann that is at fault.
The bus service has been wonderful to children and it is a pity when common sense will not prevail. In the case I raise the children were promised collection at the door because a school called Killoughternane, which is easily spelled, was closed. It can be done and mileage can be saved by doing so. The bus leaves Borris, comes to a crossroads and goes left. It travels for 2.4 miles and picks up nobody whereas if it turned right there are six children on the road. Not alone does the bus turn left and travel for 2.4 miles, it goes for another 1.7 miles to turn at a junction, which is 0.2 miles, giving a total of 1.9 miles, in order to go back down the same road and pick up children on the way back. I know, having had an old maths professor who used to teach geometry with his finger drawing a triantán anseo and an uileann anseo, that it is not easy to sit and listen to this. However, those are the figures and if common sense was ever over-ruled it is in this case.
There should be a mini-bus on the service but there is a 52 seater instead. The excuse given is that the road to the right is unsafe. That is splitting hairs because the road to the left is just as bad, but I cannot argue with safety. If that is the rule that is given, I accept that. I am hoping that, as a common sense individual, the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy O'Dea, will see to it that the children are picked up as promised by putting a mini-bus or something smaller on the route. That would save 2.3 miles each way, or five miles a day. That is over a 1,000 miles in the year. I have often argued, sensibly, for a bus service to be extended a half mile or a mile, but I was always shot down on the basis that I was costing money. The Government would not approve any extra money for buses. In this case I am saving almost 1,000 miles by giving people what they are entitled to. If the Minister of State has been told that it is not safe to have this bus on the route then it should never have been there. No arrangements should ever have been made to have a bus on the route. He cannot ignore my generosity in saving all those miles and in saving the country money. I look forward to hearing him say that common sense has prevailed and that these children will be getting the service they deserve.
This is a service for children not for a bus or for an innocent bus owner who is caught up in this arrangement. What is happening is much like providing a jumbo jet to Kilkenny Airport. It would be stranded there for life. The big bus is the very same. It cannot go around the turn and it is time common sense prevailed.
