Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 25 Oct 2022

Vol. 1028 No. 3

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Special Educational Needs

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

The whole area of assessments of need has, unfortunately, moved from crisis to crisis and rushed solution to rushed solution. A series of court cases has been taken in the past year or so. These found that the approach being taken to the assessment of needs model that was in place was inconsistent with the Disability Act. Children were not getting adequate assessment of their needs. In many instances, children were only being seen briefly under what was called the standard operating procedure. That was struck down.

Approximately five days ago, schools received a note from the Department of Education outlining the report of educational needs for the purpose of the assessment of need under the Disability Act 2005. To say that has alarmed and worried school staff, teachers and principals is an understatement.

They believe, and are quite entitled to believe on reading this document the Department has circulated, that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is passing the buck and is effectively asking schools, teachers and principals, to be the very first step in the assessment of need, AON, process and to be the people who are effectively involved in drafting a document which could form part of a legal document under the Disability Act, which is the assessment of need. This is grossly unfair on school staff, on parents and, of course, on children that schools are now essentially being charged with the initial screening or beginning of the assessment of need process. School staff are not qualified, by their own admission, to do an assessment of children with additional educational needs and it seems this is not in line with the Disability Act. It is certainly not in line with what the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs, EPSEN, Act envisioned is in the best interests of children. Legal experts and many people involved in the special education area believe that the legal basis for this is questionable.

On top of that, this is simply not a sustainable approach. The courts decided that the NCSE had a role to play in this and that it would be responsible for ensuring that the educational needs were incorporated into the assessment of need. At no stage in that court case was it said that the NCSE should decide that the schools should do that, because those in schools are not educational psychologists. The schools have many very capable people who have a great deal of talents, with special education teachers and so forth, but the schools themselves would be the first to say they are not trained to assess the educational needs of children for the purpose of an assessment of need, which is a legal document which has considerable status in the Disability Act.

This is an ill-thought-out approach and will lead to schools, principals and teachers being caught between a rock and a hard place. It could potentially lead to children not getting an appropriate or adequate assessment of need, or being passed over entirely, with all of the implications that that has for admissions to special classes at post-primary level and to special schools, for their therapies or for any supports they need through the system as a whole. This is a very badly thought-out approach and I urge the Department to reconsider it.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Dara Calleary)

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am replying to this Topical Issue debate on behalf of the Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion who could not be here this evening. It provides an opportunity to outline the current position regarding the recent changes to the assessment of need process and on the roles and responsibilities of the National Council for Special Education and schools. The AON process is provided for under the Disability Act 2005. Assessment officers under the remit of the HSE are charged with organising the assessment of need. The assessment officer makes the determination as to whether or not a child or young person meets the definition of disability contained in the Act. The assessment officer co-ordinates and completes the assessment report.

As referred to by Deputy Ó Laoghaire, since a court ruling in October 2021, there is now a legal obligation on the education system to assist the HSE as part of the HSE's assessment of need process.

The Department of Education and the NCSE have worked intensively to ensure the process put in place adheres to legal obligations arising from the HSE's AON process, and is one that is rooted in existing good practice in schools. Under the Disability Act 2005, the NCSE is obliged to nominate a person with appropriate expertise to assist in the education assessment process. Where the child is enrolled in a school the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 names the principal as the person the NCSE should contact. Identification of education needs is central to the way schools provide for the inclusion and participation of all students and to providing an education which is appropriate to a student's abilities and needs.

In that regard, it is important to note that schools routinely identify students' needs. This aligns with the obligations on schools arising from the Education Act 1998. They use a range of assessment practices as part of the continuum of support process. This is a problem-solving model of assessment and intervention that enables schools to gather and analyse data about each individual pupil's education needs, as well as for planning and review of the progress of individual pupils. The continuum of support framework enables the school to identify, address and review progress in meeting the academic, social and emotional needs of the pupil, as well as the physical, sensory, language and communication needs.

Schools have been provided with a range of resources to ensure that the education needs of all students, including those with a disability or other additional education needs, are identified and supported. The Department of Education issued guidelines for primary and post-primary schools on how they should identify and provide for the special education and learning needs of students in 2017.

Information derived from the school's assessments in education are recorded in a student support file. In line with best educational practice, the student support file details a student's education needs, as identified by the school. The information contained in the student support file is used in completing the educational component of the assessment of need form which is returned to the HSE via the NCSE.

The Department of Education and the NCSE are conscious of the workload on schools and on school leaders and, in that regard, an extensive consultation process on the educational component of the assessment of need process was undertaken prior to its introduction. This process involved schools, advocacy groups, management bodies and unions. The Department of Education and the NCSE worked with a small number of schools on a draft of the documents required as part of the HSE's assessment of need process. The schools provided valuable feedback on the form and guidance documents which was used to inform the documents that have been issued to schools.

The Department of Education and the NCSE have put in place a suite of supports to assist schools in completing the educational component of the process.

Based on numbers supplied by the HSE, it is not expected that individual schools will have to comply with large numbers of individual requests but if this happens, and I can give a guarantee to the Deputy in the House, the dedicated NCSE resource team will work closely with the relevant schools concerned to facilitate the process.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

There are two very different things at issue here. On the one hand, where a school believes a child might need additional support or may have an additional need, it will talk to the HSE and the NCSE about how that child can be supported. Schools have a role undoubtedly in that and principals and teachers are well-placed to identify somebody who potentially may need additional support.

It is an entirely different thing but it is completely back to front for the NCSE to put the responsibility for filtering that onto the school. It is one thing to say that a child may need additional support but it is another thing entirely for the NCSE to be expecting the first part of this process in the assessment of educational needs to start with the school. It changes the relationship quite substantially. A school support plan is a working document which outlines a plan to ensure the child can progress. This changes the nature of that document completely because it can now potentially form part of a legal document under the Disability Act. If the school support plan is now being equated with part of an assessment of need, then what one has been doing with the school support plan, which is a live working document and an instrument of education, changes completely. I want to emphasise that this is putting teachers between a rock and a hard place because parents will be impressing on them the fact that there are needs. The teachers may not agree but the teachers are not educational psychologists. They may miss a child, or they may miss the needs of a child.

This is not terribly complicated when one boils it all down and when one looks at the documents. I have to say these are not the clearest documents but it is educational psychologists who should be doing this work. If there is an additional budget, as there is for the NCSE, why is it not being put to use for this?

Deputy Dara Calleary

Again, I would like to thank the Deputy for raising this issue but I would draw his attention to the fact, and he would know this, the Education Act 1998 requires schools to identify and support the education needs of all of their students and to use school resources to provide for those education needs.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, has set out guidance and frameworks to assist primary, post-primary and special schools and classes in the identification of educational need. Since 2017 and the introduction of the special education teacher model, the identification of educational needs has been central to the way schools provide for the inclusion and participation of all students. This marked a significant shift from a diagnostic-driven system of allocating support to a front-loaded, responsive and needs-led model. Schools are required to use their available resources to ensure that the education needs of all students, including those with a disability or other additional educational needs, are identified and provided for. It is, therefore, proposed that this approach to identifying education need in schools, an approach which is comprehensive, robust, evidence-informed and appropriate to the education sector at this time, is also appropriate for the purpose of identifying education needs under the Disability Act. I am assured that the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, is satisfied that the educational component of the assessment of need process is child-centred, in line with educational good practice and ensures that schools, who hold all of the relevant information on the child, are supported in providing this detail to the HSE. I assure the Deputy that the Department of Education and the NCSE will continue to provide support to schools as needed. I will certainly reflect Deputy Ó Laoghaire's concern to the Minister of State and ask that guidance be given in that regard.

Freedom of Speech

Deputy Neasa Hourigan

As the Minister of State will appreciate, one of the strongest elements of our democracy is the energy and commitment of our community and activist groups. These are ordinary citizens who band together to enter into debate, to bring attention to injustice and to lift up their voices. I have had positive experiences with these groups and these people, even when we disagree. That is why I am so disheartened to see a shadow cast over this community over the past few weeks.

As the Minister of State will no doubt be aware, there has been a lot of public discourse on defamation. I welcome the Government's commitment to legislate against strategic lawsuits against public participation, SLAPPs in the coming months. These are meritless or vexatious lawsuits taken by powerful individuals or organisations against weaker parties who express an opinion or convey information on a public matter that is perceived as unfavourable or uncomfortable to the powerful. However, I have been made aware of a further unseen layer of this activity that would not, and could not, be impacted by the proposed legislation. While SLAPP legislation will address initiated legal action, often on defamation, as far as I understand it, it will not cover actions prior to that initiation and their interaction with non-disclosure agreements, NDAs. What I am describing is a process whereby a person or entity instructs a legal representative to write a letter threatening legal action, sometimes demanding an apology, usually demanding some financial restitution and, increasingly and more worryingly, demanding the signing of an NDA, all without any court being troubled at any time. The Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe is tracking cases like this and would welcome hearing from anyone impacted by them, as would I.

To provide an example, a columnist in one of our national newspapers, Mr. David Quinn, has threatened legal action against a member of a group advocating for safe access zones for women accessing abortions. He has asked not only for money and an apology, but also the signing of an NDA. Mr. Quinn has targeted this group in his columns before and his opinions cannot reasonably be disentangled from those of his employer, the Iona Institute. This is relevant because we know that foreign money is flooding into Ireland and other European countries to stoke discord. In 2021, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights published a report called Tip of the Iceberg. That report outlined the Iona Institute's interaction with funds from Fondazione Novae Terrae. This foundation bankrolls activity against what it describes as new or secular rights such as reproductive rights, marriage equality and trans rights. The possible involvement of the Iona Institute here is relevant because its 2020 financial statements showed that it did not incur legal expenses. If its director enjoys the same luxury, a great many activists and groups in Ireland could have received similar letters from Mr. Quinn but, of course, neither we nor the Government will ever know that because the NDAs are in place and the matters in question will never get to court. I ask that any review of the Defamation Act 2009, any SLAPP legislation and any legislation at all in this area would examine what additional protections can be put in place for activists and groups in the pre-court phase of this type of activity.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I thank the Deputy. I convey the apologies of my colleague, the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, who regrets she cannot be here for this matter owing to another commitment. She recognises that SLAPP proceedings are a significant potential threat to freedom of expression and to public participation, both in Ireland and internationally, particularly in respect of investigative journalism on matters of public interest. The programme for Government commits to a review of Ireland's defamation laws, as do the Department of Justice's Statement of Strategy 2021-2023 and the Minister's justice plan. The Department has carried out a review of the Defamation Act 2009, the report on which was published in March.

On 27 April 2022, the European Commission published a proposal for a directive that aims to provide common procedural safeguards at EU level against SLAPPs. Ireland opted into the adoption and application of the proposed anti-SLAPP directive, in accordance with Protocol No. 21 of the Treaty on European Union-Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in early July 2022. The proposed directive is now under consideration by a working party of the European Council and the Minister's officials are contributing to that discussion. The objectives of the Commission's proposed anti-SLAPP directive are compatible with those of our proposed reforms to defamation law.

The Department's defamation report includes a recommendation to "introduce a new 'anti-SLAPP' mechanism, to allow a person to apply to court for summary dismissal of proceedings that he/she believes are a SLAPP". A defamation (amendment) Bill to advance reforms following the review is included in the Government's autumn legislation programme. The Department is working on the general scheme of the amending Bill. The Minister hopes that the drafting of the general scheme will be completed as soon as possible. It is intended that we will take full account of the development of the anti-SLAPPs directive during its reading before the European Council. The Minister will also be taking full account of the new EU Digital Services Act as it pertains to online defamation.

Ensuring that journalism can flourish and that journalists can carry out their work safely and free from harassment is a responsibility shared by all democratic governments. Earlier this year, a new journalist safety group was set up comprising representatives of An Garda Síochána and representatives of the media and the National Union of Journalists. The group will allow journalists and An Garda Síochána to work in collaboration to make sure journalists are free from threats and violence. A Garda liaison officer has been appointed and steps taken to facilitate the reporting and addressing of individual complaints of harassment and abuse of journalists. In light of the importance of these matters, the Minister intends that a representative of the Department will join the group. The forum will allow regular discussion on how best to address matters of journalist safety including the increasing phenomena of online harassment and the making of online threats.

Deputy Neasa Hourigan

I thank the Minister of State. As I have said, I welcome the Government's work on this. I am particularly happy to hear an answer that flags the issue in respect of journalists in particular because I am aware of a number of journalists who are experiencing what I described in my previous contribution. Everyone is entitled to his or her good name. I would not argue that for a second. No one should have to deal with abuse in any form, whether online or in person. All of us in this Chamber know that people of prominence are likely to be the subject of harsh criticism and fairly critical engagement. Who we, as prominent people, choose to ignore and who we demand money, apologies and silence from matters and is relevant. If someone has been maligned or defamed and an individual then retracts their comments, there should be no need for NDAs. I hope future legislation can recognise that. If your grievance and good name have been vindicated, that should be public knowledge. It would be important to include that in legislation.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I thank the Deputy for that final comment. As we prepare to reform our defamation laws, further remedies are available to journalists and activists who are subject to harassment when carrying out their work. For example, harassment within the meaning of section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 carries a maximum penalty of up to ten years in prison. Any assault causing harm on any person is an offence under section 3 of the same Act.

A person convicted of such an offence would be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a maximum fine of €2,500 or both. The Minister has signalled her intention to increase the maximum penalty available for this offence to ten years' imprisonment in amendments to the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which is currently before the Oireachtas.

There is also Coco's Law, which the Minister commenced last year. Coco's Law strengthens the Government's response to harm perpetrated online as well as offline and ensures that individuals who commit crimes in contravention of this legislation can be brought to justice. This important Act not only created new offences relating to intimate image abuse, it also broadened the scope of the existing offence of harassment and increased the maximum penalty applicable. It provides for an offence of sending, distributing or publishing a threatening or grossly offensive message to or about another person with intent to cause harm. It also broadened the scope of the current offence of harassment under the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act, which previously referred to communication to a person. It now includes persistent communication about a person, sometimes referred to as indirect harassment. The maximum penalty for harassment has been increased from seven years to ten years to reflect the harm caused by the most serious forms of harassment.

Road Network

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I thank the Leas Cheann-Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue tonight. It is raining cats and dogs and we had huge rainfall Sunday night of last week in many parts of the country, including in south Tipperary. Thurles town was badly affected as were Cahir, Cashel and Tipperary town. It was unprecedented rainfall. I must mention the lack of maintenance of our roads with the cuts to personnel. I have to single out Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and the National Roads Association, NRA, before it. They developed fine motorways through Tipperary. We see TII regularly doing maintenance with road markings and hedge cutting. I am told by adjoining landowners it does not do any maintenance on the drainage. I am speaking about the drainage that is sometimes cut out or sometimes a road is high. The roads were cut through land and through rivers and streams. I pointed out at the time that in many cases a number of small culverts were put in place rather than one eye of a bridge. They are all getting blocked with debris from forestry and everything else. It is natural debris. There is damage being done to people's homes and properties. I know of part of a farm that was washed away by a torrent coming down from the Galtee Mountains in the parish of Ballylooby. We must have respect for landowners and property owners.

The cost of projects this year has gone spiralling upwards in the council. Its maintenance budget is exhausted much earlier than in any other year because of the increased cost. The cost of projects has massively increased because of the cost of fuel and oil-based products, including bitumen and tar. Tipperary County Council is in a perilous situation because it has exhausted most of its road and maintenance budget. Now it is faced with a bill of up to €500,000. I understand from the director of services, through my daughter, Councillor Máirín McGrath, that a letter will be arriving in the Department imminently from James Swords, the senior engineer, and Paul Farrell who is also an engineer. It will state this amount of money will be needed to repair the damage that has been done.

The big problem is a lack of maintenance and lack of accountability. The motorway was developed with compulsory purchase orders and we avail of it. A project cannot be built and then walked away from. We must go to the upper echelons of it and check the drainage and maintain it. It is not just the motorway. We have to have access in terms of fencing to prevent animals going on to it. It is a serious situation. The funding bill will be sent in. Unsuspecting motorists drive on the motorway with torrents of rain crossing it because of the lack of drainage. It is an extremely dangerous situation. Many people have been seriously injured and worse on the motorway. It is the same with the motorway to Limerick at Portlaoise.

We have spent money on the motorways but we must maintain the curtilage and the percolation and drainage areas around them. Above all we must protect life and limb. We must also protect the property of farmers, householders and farmyards. Above all we must protect households. The council staff and the general services supervisor went out. As I said here one day, one of them, Walter Doheny, suffered a minor heart attack while on duty at night. He has recovered. I spoke to him on Sunday and thanks be to God he is fine. Council workers go out to try to sort it out as do fire brigades. We should not be putting these people in this type of danger. We need proper maintenance and proper service of the projects to take place.

Deputy Dara Calleary

The improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads is the statutory responsibility of the relevant local authority in accordance with the provisions of section 13 of the Roads Act 1993. Works on these roads are funded from the council's own resources supplemented by State road grants. I know from the Deputy's contribution there was an intense rainfall event in County Tipperary over a short period of time. I am aware that the flooding affected properties over quite an area. Unfortunately these severe weather events are becoming more frequent and they highlight the need to focus on the measures needed to address climate change.

As regards the impact on regional and local roads, I can confirm that Tipperary County Council has made initial contact with the Department. It is understood, and I have picked up through Deputy McGrath who mentioned Councillor McGrath, that the council will be making a submission to the Department seeking funding to assist with repair works caused by the severe weather event.

In relation to funding options for repair works, it is established practice that local authorities are advised by the Department that a contingency provision should be reserved from the overall resources available to each local authority for regional and local roads so as to deal with damage caused by severe weather conditions. As regards the Department's grants, local authorities may carry out repairs from the regional and local road grants available to them and from their own resources. In this context it is open to each council to determine and reprioritise its work programme following severe weather events. Where this is not feasible, such as in this case as I gather from Deputy McGrath, the Department always tries to work with local authorities to facilitate the management of repair works in these situations.

Once a submission is received from Tipperary County Council which identifies the works required together with an estimate of the cost, it will be reviewed by Department officials and the Department will liaise further with Tipperary County Council on the necessary repair works and the timing of the works. In the event that national roads were affected in the manner described by the Deputy, Transport Infrastructure Ireland has stated that it is necessary to carry out a survey and hydrological assessment of the culverts and drains in the affected area to understand the cause behind the flooding and to quantify the details and costs of any works to be completed.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

It is late at night and we are all tired but this is balderdash. TII did the hydrological studies and everything else and it did not put in big enough culverts. We argued, as did farmers who knew the area and its topography, but it did not listen. Now we have a problem because it will not do maintenance. It cannot just develop a project. People cannot just build a house and forget to clean the chutes. We have this folly every time we ask a question about flooding. We hear about climate change. It just does not cut it for me. We are not climate change deniers but rivers are not cleaned and neither are gullies or streams. What happens? Every bit of dirt that runs off of this building ends up in a river, as is the case with every other building, field and roadway. I do not say forget about climate change but we need to clean the river basins and above all maintain the motorways. It makes me very angry to listen to people blame climate change. We can get downpours of rain but if the gullies and culverts are cleaned and maintained, they will take 90% of it. There might be a 10% overflow. We see farmyards flooded because of a torrent of rain. The same places were flooded 20 years ago during the development of the motorway, or before it was developed. There are issues.

TII, which was the NRA, is not maintaining or looking after the curtilage of the projects. In the case of ordinary roads the county council workers are not on the ground and we all know this. Maintenance is not being done. The hard-pressed taxpayers and ratepayers are being discommoded, with their businesses and homes destroyed. Numerous houses and businesses in Thurles were flooded. They will not get insurance because it is a recurring event.

It is mainly because of blocked gullies and inverts. That is basic maintenance and it is not being done.

The Minister of State said to go back to their existing budget. They cannot, on 1 November, go back. The budget is expended in normal years but this year, especially because of the increased costs of materials, the budget is completely expended. They need a dig-out from the Department.

Above all, we need to revisit this and do maintenance, not fire brigade work, afterwards.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I appreciate the Deputy's concerns. I am aware that the Deputy raised the issue about the damage to property with the Taoiseach earlier today.

The Deputy says he is not denying climate change but he also cannot deny the severity and the strength of weather events has completely changed over the past number of years. They have become much more frequent and much more severe. It is not a case of a simple solution like draining drains.

I will convey the points made to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and to the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, and draw the Minister's attention to the letter that has been submitted from Tipperary County Council to his Department.

As I said, I will copy the Minister with the Deputy's remarks this evening.

Public Transport

Deputy Joe McHugh

Ba mhaith liom comhghairdeas a dhéanamh leis an Teachta Calleary fá choinne a cheapachán mar Aire Stáit. Guím ádh mór air sa phost úr. This is one of the downsides of getting that recent elevation. If Deputy Calleary had not got it, he would be home in his bed now. However, the Minister of State is here into the early hours of the morning. I am glad he is here. This issue does not relate to his Department but I know he will use his influence and communication skills to pass on a couple of messages.

I want to raise an issue in relation to Creeslough in my supplementary, but the purpose of this Topical Issue matter is to raise what I believe is a case of discrimination against students. I do not know how many people in the Minister of State's constituency of Mayo would be going to Magee college in Derry, Queen's University or Jordanstown. It is the case that a student in west Donegal going to Galway who has a Leap card will get upwards of a 50% rebate on the cost of transportation to Ollscoil na Gaillimhe. However, a student from that same parish in west Donegal who is going to Belfast does not get the rebate. There is some sort of a nominal rebate as far as the Border but once the bus hits the Border there is no rebate.

I am encouraged by some of the correspondence I have seen to the effect that there are ongoing discussions but, quite frankly, a meeting needs to be held. Ongoing discussions means that there has been a meeting or maybe more than one meeting, but now there needs to be another meeting. Heads need to be put together here because students feel discriminated against.

Students have always gone to the North. Traditionally, a big percentage of students from my county have gone across the Border and they feel discriminated against. If the granny or granddad of one of these students has a pension and is over 66 years of age, she or he will get free transportation to Belfast. I accept that this comes from a different Department, the Department of Social Protection. I will set out the question I am putting to the Minister of State tonight. If a senior citizen in west Donegal can get free transportation to Belfast, involving a 100% rebate from one Department, why does their grandson or granddaughter not get any rebate as a student in Belfast, Derry or Coleraine? That is my case.

I ask the Minister of State tonight, or rather this morning, to use his position to ask one of his own officials to make contact. I do not know if officials from the National Transport Authority, NTA, will be up at this time of the morning listening to this debate. No doubt they will not, but I hope that there will be follow-up. This is a matter that can and should be, and certainly needs to be, resolved. At the end of the day, if a student in Letterkenny heading down to the beautiful city of Galway is getting 50% back by having a Leap card and his or her next-door neighbour in Letterkenny going to Belfast has to pay the full whack, there is something wrong.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I thank Deputy McHugh for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan. As Deputy McHugh confirmed, it relates to young adults travelling from the South to the North of Ireland using the Leap card scheme. As the Deputy will be aware, the Department of Transport has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport. However, the Department is not involved in the day-to-day operation of public transport services. The NTA has statutory responsibility for securing the provision of public passenger transport services nationally by way of public transport service contracts, and for the allocation of associated funding to the relevant operators. I assure the House that the Government is strongly committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic sustainable mobility options. Public transport plays a key role in the delivery of this goal. In budget 2022, the Department of Transport secured €538 million of funding for public service obligation, PSO, and Local Link services that are provided by State operators and are under contract by the NTA this year.

As the House will be aware, in recognising the importance of incentivising more young people to use public transport, as part of budget 2022, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, secured €25 million of funding for the introduction of the young adult card. This exciting initiative allows any person nationwide who is between the ages of 19 and 23 to avail of an entitlement to discounted travel costs, and to increase the level of discount over and above the current student discount to an average discount of 50% across all services, including city, intercity and rural services. Mature students in full-time education are also included in the scheme as are eligible visitors to Ireland within the young adult age cohort. The young adult card was initially introduced on PSO services on 9 May and then extended to participating commercial bus operators on 4 September. This extension of the scheme to the commercial sector means that the 50% fare discount for holders of a young adult card - those aged between 19 and 23 - or student Leap card is now available on bus services provided by participating commercial bus operators. It is important to note that this discount is in addition to the 20% average fare discount on PSO services that was introduced in May as part of a suite of Government measures to help to combat the rising cost of living.

The Deputy has raised an interesting anomaly, which is that the grandparents of some of these students are able to travel on an all-island basis. I certainly will raise that with the Department of Transport. I encourage the Deputy to raise the issue directly with the shared island unit in Roinn an Taoisigh to pursue that anomaly, but also to promote the shared island initiative. This anomaly is something that should be further addressed in the context of the all-island strategic rail review. I will certainly address it to the Department of Transport. I thank the Deputy for his good wishes.

Deputy Joe McHugh

I will not elaborate further, but I am glad that the Minister of State has not read some of the prepared reply into the record. It is pure dynamite to say we will subsidise up to the Border, given that since 2016 we have been saying we do not want a hard border on the island. Now a Department is subsidising up to the Border but not further. Incidentally, if one is going from Letterkenny to Dublin, the fare is subsidised. Anyway, it is dynamite. The Minister of State's suggestion about the shared island unit is an excellent one.

In the brief time I have remaining, I want to raise a specific issue in relation to Creeslough. We will have time set aside in two weeks to discuss in more depth the situation in the aftermath of the Creeslough tragedy. The specific issue is that due to the ongoing investigation, the main route through Creeslough is closed. Of the two pick-up and drop-off points for the community from Creeslough and even into Dunfanaghy, one is Falcarragh and the other is Termon. I am asking tonight if we could get somebody from the Department of Transport to reach out to a member of the community - I can facilitate that - to try to introduce a short-term shuttle service for people who wish to avail of this transport.

People who avail of public transport do not have a car, so they are looking to get taxis or to get neighbours to take them farther distances. This is very frustrating for so many people.

I would ask for a contact person in the Department to give me a ring tomorrow. I can link them up with a member of the community to put that service in place. We are probably only talking about a week. I do not know how long the investigation will continue; it is potentially another week. I do not have that information, as it is a prerogative of the Garda.

One of the answers I will get back will be there has to be a tendering process. We have to use our common sense here. People are still dealing with this enormous tragedy, and the tragedy will be with the community for a long time into the future. It is about what we can do now in the short window we have available to fix things with a bit of common sense, such as a person picking up the phone and trying to get this sorted. I think it can be done. In fairness to Donegal County Council and all the Departments, they are all working hard to try to do the right and best thing. This is just one little thing that could help enormously.

Deputy Dara Calleary

Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the families of the bereaved and injured, indeed, with the entire community of Creeslough and with all of our public representative colleagues. In the spirit that was engendered in the entire country in that terrible week, I will absolutely ensure contact is made with the Deputy tomorrow to discuss this.

Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 12.22 a.m. go dtí 9.12 a.m., Dé Céadaoin, an 26 Deireadh Fómhair 2022.

The Dáil adjourned at 12.22 a.m. until 9.12 a.m. on Wednesday, 26 October 2022.