I welcome the Minister of State to the House and call on Senator McGowan to move the motion.
School Transport Scheme: Motion.
I move:
That Seanad Éireann calls on the Minister for Education to review the School Transport Scheme.
I welcome the Minister to the House. Her presence here indicates her recognition of the importance of school transport. I am pleased we can have a debate on this particular aspect of education.
It is about 27 years since the late Donogh O'Malley introduced school transport and the structures have evolved substantially since then. In County Donegal few people received third level education 27 years ago; today, few families do not aspire to providing third level education for their children. The situation has completely altered since the introduction of school transport and I believe it is now necessary to review the system, which is the purpose of my motion this evening.
I understand that a sum in excess of £34 million is provided by the Minister and the Government to CIE for school transport. Approximately 60 per cent of that sum is spent on the transport of grant aided students to second and third level education and the remaining 40 per cent goes to small contractors who provide school transport for CIE. This is not an easy business to manage as it involves the Minister and Department of Education, CIE and different contractors. I do not think that making the chain longer makes it any stronger.
I have been associated with trying to improve school school transport for a long time and I saw the need for a review of the system long before now. I am not blaming any particular Minister, Government or Department or CIE. We must take a hard look at how the money is spent and ask if the State or the taxpayer can afford to give more money. It is a growing problem and the ever increasing cost of school transport must be examined. I would ask the Minister to bear in mind the fact that is now more costly to insure, maintain, repair and replace vehicles. I am sure that our experience in Donegal is no different to that of Kerry, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim or any part of rural Ireland today.
I examined my file on the many times I have written to different Ministers for Education over the years about different schools and I brought two letters with me to cover two different periods. I will give the Minister examples of how serious the problem is in my county. Children from the St. Johnson area, which is one of the problem areas in County Donegal, must get up at 6 a.m. to be transported by car to a site where they are picked up by a bus which takes them to a second bus. This means they arrive much too early for school in Raphoe or Letterkenny. They spend at least two hours travelling the nine miles from their homes to Raphoe. That is totally unacceptable.
We have another situation in Donegal where a bus collects children in the Ballybofey-Stranorlar area for the prior and comprehensive school in Raphoe. That bus — which is referred to locally as the bus for the Protestant children — cannot collect Catholic children who want to travel from the Ballybofey-Stranorlar area to Raphoe vocational school. Some people have asked if they have to change their religion to get school transport. Those are the kind of problems we have.
Many schools were closed down in the rationalisation programme over the years and the Department of Education has given an undertaking to transport the children from schools which have been closed to the schools which have been designated to take them. In a number of cases where the school bus is full or overloaded, the Department said it had a contractual obligation to take, for example, the two children who were attending a school at Meencariagh, which is near Barnesmore, but had no contract or obligation to take an additional two children who were not at the primary school when the Department closed it and made the contract. That too is unacceptable.
I understand Senator Cotter has tabled an amendment to the motion but I do not think that is helpful. I am serious about this and I do not intend to make political capital out of this and I am delighted the Minister came to the house to deal with this matter. There are many similar situations in County Donegal and I would like the Minister to look at them. If necessary, she should review the whole school transport system, a review I believe is long overdue. I am pleased the Minister has made an announcement about certain disadvantaged schools. I am most concerned about schools in rural areas. It is necessary for the maintenance of education in rural areas to take a hard look at these schools.
On the main road between Ballybofey and Donegal a school bus collects children at a pick up point which has been agreed between CIE and the Department of Education. The pick up point is less than a mile from where the school children live. I have written to CIE and the Department of Education asking that the school bus pick up point be changed to where the families live. I am sorry to say — and I do not mean it destructively — that the Department refused, although the route had only to be extended by nearly a mile. It is unacceptable that on wet winter mornings children have to walk almost a mile on the main Donegal road, with heavy traffic, to be picked up by a bus and taken to another school. The Minister will say she has fought a hard battle at Government for the amount of money she got and that she spends it as wisely as she can having inherited a system she may not like. Nevertheless, I believe a review of the whole system is long overdue and I sincerely ask her to take a positive look at it.
The safety aspect of school transport must also be looked at. I was in the United States this year and I took photographs which I want to show the Minister. It is important to note that there are special stop signs on all school buses in America and when the stop sign and the lights are flashing on a school bus it is unlawful to pass out that bus. It is painted very clearly on the back of the bus that it is unlawful to pass a school bus. They found, from experience of the number of children who had been killed and injured, that it was necessary to implement stringent safety regulations for school transport.
I believe safety is an important aspect of the problem here and I ask that it be seriously addressed when the review takes place. The problems in this area have snowballed to the point where I do not know how the Minister or the Department could continue operating this scheme without a review. A number of local children have been killed alighting from the back of a bus. Legislation will be required and a positive attitude must be adopted because of the many people involved — the Department, CIE and the subcontractors.
The present relationship between CIE and the subcontractors is not satisfactory. There is a tug-of-war going on. It is believed the private bus operator could do a better job if he was no longer tied to CIE — I do not believe that personally. CIE has different responsibilities and much bigger overheads, for example, insurance, paying and insuring drivers, holiday pay, etc., and it is making a major contribution to school transport. The solution will not be easy: we are looking for an in-depth examination and hopefully the Minister will have enough support in Government to undertake a major review which can only lead to improvement.
I want to emphasise the safety regulations. The Minister will be aware of the number of children who have lost their lives alighting from school transport vehicles. I appreciate the Minister taking the time to come to the House. I hope our motion will bring closer the day when we will have an improved school transport system.
I second the motion because it promotes the sensible idea that the public sector policy should be reviewed. Periodic reviews should be part of every public sector policy.
The free school transport system was introduced many years ago and has served the country well; it has created a new dynamic by allowing people to move freely around the country in search of education. However, like any good system after many years a number of bureaucratic elements have inevitably crept into it — and Senator McGowan dealt with some of them. I supported this motion within my parliamentary group because of those bureaucratic elements.
I know the Minister will forgive me for being parochial because in constituency matters she is no slouch herself. She will understand if, in illustrating how bureaucracy can impede the operation of the system, I will obviously pick an example from County Wicklow — and the Minister is already aware of the example I am going to pick.
There are several deficiencies in the system and one of the major ones is that the school transport liaison officer in each area operates in a direct relationship with the Minister rather than answering to a locally based organisation and it is difficult to get any feedback at local level from school transport liaison officers. I have long argued that local discussion should be part of the resolution of difficulties in the school transport system.
I will illustrate this with reference to specific events in north Wicklow with which the Minister is familiar. Some years ago one of the Minister's predecessors decided a new second level school was to be built there and, as north Wicklow — the Bray-Greystones area, in particular — was then growing more rapidly than any other area in the country, it was a sensible decision. However, good sense and educational planning went out the door when it was decided to build the new second level school in Wicklow town.
At that time Wicklow town was oversupplied with second level places: there are two excellent secondary schools in the town, the De La Salle college and the Dominican convent; and we also had the growing Abbey community college — which has since developed remarkably — run by the vocational education committee. Those three second level institutions are of adequate size to take all the students from their immediate catchment area.
The Minister for Education at the time gave permission to build a new second level school for the Church of Ireland community — the East Glendalough school — but it was built in the wrong place — Wicklow town. It should have been built in Kilcoole. All the arguments favoured building a community college — and not a denominational one — in Kilcoole to service people of all denominations and none.
All but a few of the places in second level schools in north Wicklow are spoken for. Parents from Kilcoole, Newtownmountkennedy, Newcastle and Greystones cannot get their children into the local secondary schools. Those parents have indicated that they would like to exercise some choice in their children's education. Many girls' parents want them to go to all girls' schools. That may be a good or a bad thing, but the point is that the parents should have the right to choose. Yet, there are no places for their girls in all girls' schools. Some parents wish to send their boys to all boys' schools but there are no places available. There are no places available in St. David's, the only second level school in Greystones — and an excellent school — irrespective of the choice one would wish to exercise.
Currently school buses run from Kilmacanogue and Newcastle through Kilcoole with many empty spaces. They are going to the East Glendalough Church of Ireland school. Parents have had discussions with the county school transport liaison officer, as has the vocational education committee, but progress has not been made. Logic and good sense would suggest if the students are in Kilcoole and the school places are in Wicklow town, any school bus going via Kilcoole to Wicklow with spare capacity should pick up those children and bring them to the available secondary level places.
The people in Kilcoole and Greystones have been most reasonable. They endorsed the ministerial decision to build a new Church of Ireland second level school. Now, however, people of the majority religious persuasion have no school for their children. Seventeen families in Kilcoole are wondering where they will find education for their children in the autumn term.
To return to the motion, what does this illustrate? Apart from showing that the people in north Wicklow suffer monumental injustices calmly, have extraordinary patience and are well represented in this House if not elsewhere it illustrates there is a common sense approach to resolving this problem. The Minister and any person, especially a politician, in the area, would accept that. However, many bureaucratic considerations, such as catchment boundaries are involved in the school transport system and educational considerations are not taken into account.
Another distressing fact is the feeling among parents and public representatives in north Wicklow that two different stories are being told. The vocational education committee says recommendations are being made to the Department of Education which will not disappoint local interests; notwithstanding that, parents have been told the Department has been advised the best that can be done for those children is to offer them boundary catchment area transport. That means they will get spare capacity on buses from Newcastle but there is no public transport from Kilcoole to Newcastle in the early morning. This means the children will be left high and dry even if this "concession" is extended. If the school transport system could have more local input and the school transport liaison officers in all counties, not just Wicklow, discussed catchement boundaries with local public representatives in the vocational education committee or wider local education authorities, more sensible public school transport would be provided.
It might also be a good but hardly a revolutionary idea if children attending the Church of Ireland secondary school in Wicklow town could share buses if not education with children from other denominations or vice versa. There are special concerns in regard to Church of Ireland schools and the State correctly over-compensates for the minority status of that group. Even until the Minister decides to build a secondary school in Kilcoole, which is an issue for another day, it would be a good idea to be accomodating and to adopt a more flexible approach.
I have illustrated a shortcoming in the school transport system by refering to a parochial consideration but the problem of inflexibility and bureaucracy arises across the country. The Minister is conscious of the need to improve matters and to get value for money. As part of a review it would be wise to examine how best to link the school transport liaison officer role with local considerations. Perhaps elected members of vocational education committees should be involved because they know the position in local areas and where there is pressure. They also have to answer for themselves democratically to the parents. That might be a positive step forward.
The school transport system has served the country well. It was a small but dramatic step forward when introduced and will continue to serve us well. There are needs for adjustments to various aspects of the scheme and I have illustrated one of those.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Education" and substitute the following:
"to publish the two reports on the school transport scheme so that an informed debate can take place on all aspects of the said scheme."
I am pressing this amendment and it will be seconded by my colleague Senator McDonagh.
To some extent we are speaking in a vacuum this evening but consideration of the amendment will lead one to realise the vacuum is unnecessary. Every Member should have copies of these reports available to them. They should be able to read and examine them and speak from knowledge of the contents of the reports. A fine debate could then take place on the school transport issue. It is an expensive business in that last year it cost £37.5 million to operate and it may cost more this year.
I am sure the Minister is aware of the two reports I mention — the Deloitte and Touche report and the Bastow Charleton report — which were commissioned by Deputy Brennan while he was Minister for Education. Why did the Minister commission two reports? I believe a small scandal lies in the answer to the question. It should be investigated and the results made known.
The first report was carried out by the Deloitte and Touche consultancy firm. It is an internationally renowned firm with considerable experience and expertise in the transport field. The Minister received, read and for some reason rejected that report. He decided not to publish it and, because it did not agree with his views, he rejected it.
Being in control of taxpayers' money he decided he had the luxury to commission a second report in the hope it would agree with his view of what should be done with the transport system. This was putting the cart neatly before the horse. He first decided what he wanted to do and then commissioned a report that would agree with him. He could then say he was not responsible for doing what he wanted but the report had forced him to do so. I find that unacceptable and I am sure taxpayers would too.
These questions have to be raised because we want to know why the two reports are not available to all of us by now. Why does the Minister have access and we do not? In answer to a question from Deputy Jim Higgins, the then Minister said in the Dáil on 22 October last the Deloitte and Touche report was based on a study including confidential information on cost factors relating to the operations of Bus Éireann and private transport firms. In my investigations I have discovered everyone in Ireland has access to the report by now. I do not have a copy in my possession but I know where they can be had.
I have a copy here.
The Senator is not supposed to have it. He is breaking the law by bringing it into the House. He is supposed to have it in his locker where nobody can see it——
But the Senator wants it to be published.
——because it has not been published yet.
I have it.
The Senator should not have it.
I did not get it in this House.
Will the Senator apologise to the House immediately? Nobody is supposed to have that report. The Minister is refusing to publish it. When Deputy Brennan was Minister for Education he refused to publish it, yet the Senator from Cork has a copy and every person around the country who wants a copy can have one. The Minister refuses to publish it on the basis that she could be questioned about it in a court, and that it contains certain sensitive information. The Senator has all that sensitive information in his possession at the moment. This is the new Ireland. Did the Senator get it from the Minister by any chance?
No.
Acting Chairman
Senator Cotter to continue without interruption.
Am I the person interrupting? This illustrates the point I am making. We have a ridiculous situation where a report, which has not been published, is available in this House. The Minister refused to publish it but everybody is able to get a copy of it. This is ludicrous and needs to be investigated. It is not a matter for silly comment in this House that a report, which has not been published, is in the possession of a Senator. The Senator should explain to the House where and how he got the report and he should apologise to the House for having it because I am sure that, as a Member of this House, he is aware that since this report has not been published he should not have it in his possession. I do not have a copy of it although I have been informed I can do so. This must be investigated and I ask the Minister, who moved into the Department recently, to open up that Department and examine what happened with regard to that report and find out how the Senator got a copy of it. I hope the Minister herself did not give it to him.
I will tell the Senator in a second.
The Senator has a duty to tell the House——
Do not be so full of cant.
——where he got that report.
He does not want to know, he wants to carry on with his antics.
Senator Cotter without interruption,
I am asking the Minister to treat this matter very seriously. She should find out why the report has not been published and why people all over the country have copies of it. She should find out the background and let us know how much taxpayers' money was spent and whether it was ill-spent because everybody is saying it was. The public are certainly of that opinion. We cannot afford such luxuries at a time when money is in short supply.
We are trying to reduce the cost of the system yet when one looks at it one sees that approximately 170,000 children are transported to and from school every day. It is a massive operation. I know the Minister is aware of the intricacies and the difficulties dealing with it. I believe that in the interests of open Government the other report should also be made available officially. Senator Magner could then have this report——
As Deputy Higgins had in the Dáil the night it was debated. The Senator is full of cant and hypocrisy.
Acting Chairman
Senator Cotter without interruption. I remind the Senator that he has one minute left.
I will make a few comments on the system itself. I am concerned about the safety aspect. I am firmly convinced that it is unsafe to have 70 or 80 children travelling to school on a bus in the morning without adult supervision. There is also overcrowding. Buses which were provided when the scheme was introduced are now outdated and because of their age and condition they are dangerous. The safety of the children must be considered.
I suggest, as I have done before, that there is an easy way to provide adult supervision for every bus. We are all aware that there are 300,000 people without work. I am sure a few thousand of them could be deployed under the social employment scheme so that every bus would have adult supervision.
All of us, particularly those of us who are teachers, know that the child who leaves the front door in the morning is not the child who gets on the school bus and is not the child who enters school. Peer pressures see to that. Parents never understand that their child, who is very good and obedient in its home environment, gets into all sorts of difficulties outside of that environment. It happens and the school bus is one of the places where we have, and have always had, difficulties with behaviour.
This is one aspect the Minister should look at immediately. She has the remedy. A few thousand people taken off the dole and put on the social employment scheme would improve the system greatly. I am sorry I do not have more time and that I spent too much time talking about a report which should not be in the possession of a Senator——
And that Deputy Higgins had in the Dáil.
I am proposing that we have a properly informed debate on the basis that the Minister will issue the two reports officially so we can read them. Why can we not get them? Taxpayers' money has been used to pay for them. We should have them and at that stage we could have a very good debate. I ask every Member of this House to support my amendment.
I second the amendment. I welcome the Minister to the House.
I believe the school transport system is not student friendly. We are told that education and educational facilities should revolve around our students, that students should be the focal point around which the educational system revolves. This is not the case in my opinion and in the opinion of many people involved in the education sphere.
The length of the school day causes many students, particularly in rural areas, to be disadvantaged. The cause in most instances is that school buses have to make two trips. Many buses in rural Ireland, and students accordingly, are on the road from approximately 6.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Also, there is a great lack of facilities in schools to provide hot meals. It is medically unsound to expect students to perform well academically because they are disadvantaged in the sense of having to be away from home for so long without any proper or substantial meal. We then expect them to pass their examinations and to perform well in the difficult and competitive education system that exists today.
I understand there is now a grave danger that the double tripping may become triple tripping if an EC directive is implemented by next September. This directive, as I understand it, states that for those aged 15 and over there should be two students to one seat. At the moment students up to 19 years of age can occupy a seat with two others — this makes three students to one seat. This raises the issues of safety. We should also keep in mind that in addition to three to a seat there is also luggage carried on seats.
A recent survey conducted by "The Gay Byrne Show" on radio estimated that a student's school bag weighs approximately one stone. I put the question, be it rhetorical or not, are buses designed for this type of carriage? I can instance one school in my own area which, for the last nine months, had 72 pupils travelling on a school bus with their luggage and bags. It must be stated that any review of school transport seems to worsen the facility because the number of those who can travel on buses is lowered and they go from double to triple tripping. This means that any safety improvements will be a disadvantage for the students because the school day will be lengthened.
It must be remembered that many buses do two journeys to the post-primary school and one journey to the primary school before nine o'clock each morning. Regrettably, when the Department thinks about cutbacks, the first area to be affected is the school transport system. Perhaps the reason for this is that students have no one to speak for them. The teachers have their unions, the Department can speak for itself, but the students have no one to speak for them. Accordingly, they are being disadvantaged and it is time students and their problems be taken into consideration.
As a solution I believe a small percentage increase in the transport budget could greatly improve the system and make it student friendly. Students could achieve more from a good transport system if they had a shorter school day because they would be more alert and could perform better. As a public representative living in the west, I know that its remoteness causes a major problem for students and school buses. Long distances must be travelled because of the catchment area. In Dublin city or the surrounding areas, a catchment area could be confined to a three mile radius while in Connemara, the area I represent, the radius can be up to 16 miles. Accordingly, students are subjected to hardship and are disadvantaged. Perhaps the Minister could tell me if such areas ae entitled to special assistance from European funds for the transport system which operates in these areas.
I call on the Minister and the Department to put an end to the double trips which buses have to make. No student should be asked to leave their homes before 8 o'clock in the morning. It must also be remembered that in order to get to the school bus, many students must walk two miles because there is no obligation on Bus Éireann to supply school transport to any student living within three miles of their school. This is an issue of deep concern to parents, boards of management of community schools, vocational educational committees, etc.
I hope the Minister will carry out the review, at the end of the day, because the students and their needs should be taken into consideration. If this happens, there will be a better transport system in operation and no student will have to leave their homes, particularly in winter time, before 8 o'clock in the morning. If this system is introduced, the Minister will have done a good job.
Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an t-Aire.
"Supervision and management of the school transport network is well carried out by Bus Éireann." This is a quotation from the Deloitte and Touche report, "The Operation of the School Transport Scheme", which Senator Cotter would like to have published. I will not tell the Senator where I got that report.
Has the Senator got a copy?
Everyone has a copy of the report. I do not understand why Senator Cotter does not have one.
I borrowed it from Deputy J. Higgins.
Acting Chairman
Senator Kelly, without interruption, and all may be revealed.
The school transport system is one of the best nationwide services which we have in this State. Each day 165,000 people are transported on 6,000 routes; 800 of these vehicles are run by Bus Éireann under the yellow bus scheme and many of the remaining vehicles are operated by 1,150 private contractors.
Many Senators have highlighted incidents in their constituencies which have shown the problems that exist in the scheme. I would like the Senators to stop arguing from the particular to the general and look instead at the overall scheme which has been provided for almost 25 years. Although problems exist the scheme has been operated in an efficient manner by Bus Éireann and the Labour Party would be slow to change a system which, according to many people, is doing a good job.
Many small rural companies operate school transport systems on behalf of Bus Éireann. Without them the system would not work and without the school transport business many of these small bus operators would be out of business. Consequently, many rural transport facilities, for example, buses bringing passengers to and from games and bingo, would not be available.
The rules and regulations are laid down by the Department of Education. I agree with Senators who say that no system is so perfect that a review is not necessary. I would remind them that there is more than one school bus scheme. There are ten separate bus schemes which operate in conjunction with one another or, as a Senator said earlier, against one another. This is one of the problems which exist when a complex nationwide system is in operation.
We must also remember that these schemes are administered by Bus Éireann on a non-profit basis. Any savings which Bus Éireann makes revert to the Department of Education. Bus Éireann has figures which prove that the real cost of providing a school transport system has been reducing since the mid-1980s, if inflation is taken into account. This is due to their ability to operate economies of scale and to ensure that competitive rates apply when they employ private bus contractors to do some of their work.
Did the Senator get that information from the report?
No, I got it from Bus Eireann. All moneys are properly spent and accounted for not only by Bus Éireann's auditors, Craig Gardner, but also by the Department's auditor. The scheme is administered by nine local offices. Therefore, when one complains about bureaucracy, one is complaining about a local office because it is not a centralised bureaucracy. If there were more than nine offices, Bus Éireann would not be efficient enough to operate at a competitive rate. For example, there is a local office in County Limerick and people from County Limerick or County Clare can make representations or inquiries to the Limerick office.
Bus Éireann employs 67 inspectors who ensure that safety standards are maintained on all buses, whether they are buses directly under the control of Bus Éireann or supplied by a subcontractor. These 67 inspectors can arrive unexpectedly and this ensures that safety standards are applied. Before contractors are employed by Bus Éireann, drivers must ensure that they have the necessary driving skills to safely operate a school bus. They must also ensure that they and their relief drivers are in good health. By ensuring that drivers are operating under safety standards. Bus Éireann guarantees that our children are safely transported to and from school.
Since Bus Éireann is the biggest transport expert in the country, why should we change from a proven operator which has served this country well? Have we any guarantee that if we move the system from Bus Éireann the private operator will ensure that the same rigid standards are maintained?
Was there a suggestion that it would be changed?
Yes. Pilot schemes to transfer the scheme out of Bus Éireann's control have been attempted in Counties Carlow, Laoighis, Cavan and Clare and we have heard no results from them. Perhaps they showed that Bus Éireann was doing the competent job we believed all along.
That is a revealing statement.
Acting Chairman
Senator Kelly, without interruption.
If there were more people operating outside of the control of Bus Éireann the per unit cost of administration would rise. Who would pay for this? Surely it would be levied on the parents. This would mean there would be no protection for the smaller rural schools while larger urban schools might be prepared to subsidise numbers on buses to ensure they maintain their service.
Competition between schools is not only confined to the playing pitches, it also exists as to student numbers particularly in rural areas where there is a general decline in numbers anyway. Therefore, without the control of Bus Éireann one would have a lot of local conflict. If there were ten children living along a particular road and they were equi-distant between schools, there would be competition between schools and bus operators to get those children on the bus going to their school. I could see a myriad of headaches looming for politicians.
If the school transport scheme was removed from Bus Éireann what would happen to Bus Éireann? The school transport scheme is worth about 40 per cent of Bus Éireann's total revenue and its loss would lead to about 1,100 redundancies. It would also lead to garage closures in places such as Longford town, Athlone, Thurles, Tralee, Cavan and Waterford.
The school bus system often not only brings children to school but also provides a vital link to scheduled services to larger urban areas, as happens, for example, in the Baltimore area of County Cork. Without the school bus link this service to the people of west Cork would have to be ended as it would not be feasible or viable.
A review is needed because, as I said, no system is so perfect that we cannot take another look at it. It often struck me that, for example, the 800 or more yellow buses in operation under Bus Éireann are often lying idle between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Yet, these yellow buses could be put to good use particularly in rural areas to transport elderly people to outpatient clinics, for example.
I would ask the Minister to ensure that Bus Éireann is fully compensated and paid for its services because Bus Éireann has informed me that there is a slight shortfall every year. It is not fully recompensed for the money it spends paying private contractors.
I am glad I was present to hear Senator Kelly as I have suspected for a long time that a plan was being hatched to privatise school transport. Senator Kelly has confirmed that this evening. I too have a copy of the Deloitte and Touche report. I concur with Senator Kelly that the transport system operated by Bus Éireann, as was proved by the Deloitte and Touche consultants, proved to be the most cost effective. That report was produced and presented but never published. The report states that the present transportation arrangements are satisfactory and should not be altered unless circumstances significantly change. It is extraordinary that the Minister then commissioned Bastow Charelton to do another report. Was that for the purpose of appointing consultants at a high cost to look into the previous report? All we have had are reports.
While all that was happening, in an area of north Cork — there were moves toward privatisation and people are now beginning to realise that — in a place called Araglin, the Department of Education on 19 June 1992 wrote two letters to the same school manager, one saying that because he had not got sufficient eligible children in one area it was withdrawing school transport; the other letter said there were not enough eligible children in the other area — one area was Lyre and Lyrebarry and the other was Ballinamodock. You could throw a stone easily between Lyre and Lyrebarry and Ballinamodock and to use the regulation that says that areas must be distinct localities was an abuse of the system and the school transport regulations. That was done because they were not distinct localities.
Araglin is the most rural area of Ireland with children attending a national school and on 1 September when the school opened there was no school transport. It was not provided until all the children were withdrawn from that school, with the exception of one family. The Department resurrected a document produced in 1978 which said that children in a close school area, Ballyheafy, were more appropriate to Ballyduff. That was done despite the fact that in a letter in 1978 the then Minister of State wrote to a public representative in that area and said that the Department had conceded that the children should be going to Araglin school. Yet, it was resurrected for the purpose of producing figures that were not accurate to show that the locality did not have the required number of eligible children. I thought that was a mean thing to do. It has since been conceded that they are part of the Araglin locality.
I have been in touch with the Ministers and their officials — and from time to time I have been cross with officials. I saw the ugly face of bureaucracy in the Department of Education and I will not pull any punches on this issue. A family who live two miles from the pick up point were told that their child would have transport from the door, but when the school transport was withdrawn, they would not accept, as many other parents would not accept at the time, that their child should have to travel two miles. The Department of Education have advised time and again that the accepted norm a child must travel is 1.5 miles but in this case it is almost two miles. This has been checked and double checked and since September 1992 those children have not attended Araglin national school. This is a disgrace. These parents are only concerned about the welfare of their children. That child, who is asthmatic, has improved. The Minister has advised me that school transport is the concern of the Minister of State at the Department of Education, but I ask her to address this case and the position in Araglin. There are now 20 qualified children in this area; previously it was said there was fewer than ten and when the transport was restored this number increased to 14.
Finally, I ask the Minister to make a statement of policy on the future of school transport. While it is accepted that one cannot go up every boreen, what is required is a reasonable system that will provide a service for the children in rural areas.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the House on the school transport system. We are fortunate in having a Minister for Education who is a former school teacher and understands and has an active knowledge of the many problems involved. If it was not for the late Donogh O'Malley we would not be addressing this issue today. Mr. O'Malley was a man ahead of his time in establishing in the 1960s the school transport system. It was and remains a great service, especially for those living in rural areas and in towns.
I want to pay tribute to the bus drivers in Bus Éireann and in the privately owned bus companies. They display commendable courage driving big buses around narrow country roads. Very few accidents happen and this is due to their great skill. Given the material of which the modern bus is made, fibreglass and so on, the drivers must be especially careful. In addition, the condition of some of these buses is appalling, especially those in the Bus Éireann fleet which need urgent replacement. They are leaking, their life span has expired and because of maintenance costs it is expensive to keep them on the road.
Perhaps the Minister could ensure that her Department consults with the Minister for the Environment so that he may tell county managers that more attention should be paid to hedge trimming and sign posting of country roads along a school bus route. In an age where there are large lorries, farm machinery and trucks travelling on those roads I would not drive a school bus for £1,000 per week. The responsibility of having 60 children on a bus travelling roads is onerous. While the local council has an obligation to breast the hedges, the rest of the cutting of such hedges is an obligation on the land owners. I have endeavoured to emphasise this point in my local area of south Tipperary. Special attention should be paid to school bus routes to ensure that the hedges are properly trimmed twice a year. Such routes should be signposted to indicate that they are school bus routes. It would be appalling if there were an accident; there have been many near misses thanks to the skill of the drivers.
The Bus Éireann offices which assist schools and parents to deal with problems that arise was mentioned by Senator Sherlock. I am aware of the area of which he spoke and it is regrettable that this difficulty has arisen. Problems like this have arisen through the years largely because the application of the regulations has been too strict. The Minister might give power to the inspectors at local level to allow them be more flexible in the application of the regulations. For example, because of regulations even if there are vacant seats on a bus, the driver has to pass children on the road. This does not make sense. Years ago CIE bus drivers passed old age pensioners on the road. These people had to walk three miles to the bus stop before they could board a bus. This problem was resolved and I believe the problems with the school transport system can also be resolved.
The Minister should consider delegating more power to people at local level to enable them resolve the teething problems and to get the system to operate more smoothly. She might also persuade her Cabinet colleague to issue a directive to county managers to tidy school bus routes to ensure there are no tragedies.
The big buses in use on the school bus routes were not designed for country roads. The larger mini buses, used by some of the private operators, are safer than big buses, especially on country roads. Perhaps the Minister would consider this aspect as it is essential to avoid the risk of accidents. I have every confidence that, with the Minister's experience in this area, all the necessary measures will be taken.
This is one of the innumerable subjects on which I attended the House to listen and learn. However, experience has taught me that if one is a listener and learner one is not noticed and tends to become invisible. In view of this I thought I should take the opportunity to respond to the gracious invitation of the Chair to make one or two comments on the discussion. However, I do so without access to that now famous report.
I have no difficulty with Ministers rejecting consultants' reports. There appears to be a fetish about such reports. This may have been justified in earlier years, although even then I believe it would have been doubtful, but not today. Many consultants' reports are scarcely worth the paper they are written on and I have no difficulty with Ministers rejecting them, and even rejecting them contumely. Not knowing the content of this report I am not suggesting that it should be rejected. However, when Ministers reject reports it would be helpful to debate if they published them and gave their reasons for rejecting them. This would give an opportunity to evaluate the calibre of ministerial thinking compared with the calibre of consultant thinking. I have no doubt that in a number of cases the ministerial thinking would be clearly superior. I am not suggesting that this is the case in this instance.
Two points have struck me. There has been an ideological undercurrent in the debate between public transport and private transport, between Bus Éireann and privatisation. A review is desirable if only on the grounds that periodic reviews are desirable anyway. I hope that such a review will be conducted without ideological preconceptions simply in terms of trying to evaluate where the best value for money lies but taken in a capacious context and not looking at it purely through the narrowest of accountancy perspectives which tend to be a temptation for reviews.
The school bus system is part of the warp and weave of the social structure of rural Ireland and any attempt to reduce the evaluation of the school bus system purely to the short term accountancy dimension, even though that cannot be ignored, grossly over-simplifies the role of the system in Irish society. It is for that reason that I hope any terms of reference for such a review are very carefully thought out, to evaluate it or require its evaluation in a much broader context than the purely financial.
Many of the issues that were raised by Senator Kelly in terms of the implications for division in communities, which are already rife with potential for division, are unlikely to be taken into account by the type of people who normally conduct reviews. There have been some extraordinarily inept reviews in different areas of education, not least higher education of which I have some personal knowledge and on which I will not linger here, but they have left me with a very healthy scepticism of the capacity of even the most professional of consultancy groups to conduct effective reviews because their terms of reference simply do not either enable them or compel them to take the variety of variables into account.
I wish to make one final point which I am sure the Minister does not need me to make as she is such a formidable constituency politician. There is a perspective in a great deal of public comment — one gets it in the financial columns of newspapers, from academics and from political scientists — that a preoccupation with local issues demeans Irish politics, that there is an impurity attached to lingering over local issues which are almost invariably presented as being contrary to some theoretical national interest. Senator Roche began today by almost apologising for his preoccupation with parochial issues. It seems to me that on an issue of this type it is a great strength of our system that there is such a concern with, a solicitude for and a knowledge of local issues among politicians whether in the Dáil or in the Seanad. Therefore far from resenting the emphasis on localities that one hears in discussions of this type, that seems to me to be one of the great strengths of our system. I hope the Minister will take cognisance of the points made by those who are speaking from a position of informed authority on their local issues.
I wish to deal with one aspect of this issue. School transport is varied and it appears that there has been some confusion about the role of Bus Éireann on the one hand and the Department of Education on the other. As I understand it, if the Minister instructed Bus Éireann to pick up everybody with a green jumper, it would simply pick them up and drop them off at the appropriate place. Bus Éireann does not decide who is selected to go to any particular area. Its job is to transport people.
I wish to deal with that aspect, which was also touched on by Senator Sherlock, but before I do so I wish to address a remark to my colleague Senator Cotter about the Deloitte and Touche report. It first come to my notice when Deputy J. Higgins stood up in the Dáil and waved it at the former Minister for Education, Deputy S. Brennan and asked him why he would not publish it. If I am due to be taken to the gallows I will be accompanied no doubt by the Fine Gael spokesperson on Education and, by Senator Sherlock whom I believe also has a copy in his possession, and I would not rule out Senator Kelly either.
I got the report today not from anybody in the House or anybody connected with the Department of Education, but I am very glad I got it. I have read many reports that examined State enterprise over the years and this report in my opinion proves that CIE through Bus Éireann is operating probably the best possible school transport system. Deloitte and Touche, I understand, put people on this report who had specific expertise in transportation and one of their conclusions was that the present scheme is satisfactory and should not be altered.
Call in Deputy S. Brennan.
The report stated that the provision of the school transport scheme by Bus Éireann was, in their opinion, at or near the minimum cost. Supervision and management of the school transport network is carried out efficiently by Bus Éireann and the level of skill and service provided by the company in the management of the scheme is high. Management and supervision costs represent value for money in that the overall cost of the scheme has fallen.
Would anybody believe that after a hard nosed team of experts was sent in to examine one of the units of the former CIE, that report would emerge? I suggest that there is not a private company in the State that would come out of an investigation like that as well as Bus Éireann.
The safety record of Bus Éireann has been alluded to tonight. It moves 165,000 children a day throughout the State.
I said 170,000, I did not have the report.
I will give it to the Senator when this discussion is concluded. Bus Éireann's safety record is outstanding. There have been incidents, and there is no doubt about that. One incident occurred when the school bus was long gone and tragically a child was injured on the road. That had no connection with the system itself. When we talk about accidents we should be very careful and specific, and if the transport system is involved, fair enough. Bus Éireann's record is outstanding and that should be said here. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the skill and proficiency of the people who drive those buses and control the children.
I note that in recent speeches relating to bullying at school, the Minister has placed this matter very high on her agenda. I have no doubt that the drivers employed by the private contractors and Bus Éireann operate a disciplinary system to ensure that nobody gets hammered on a bus. That is not the job they are paid for but I am glad they do it. The Minister's believes that people who have responsibility in schools, whether they are teachers or in the ancillary services, have a role to ensure that children are well treated by their peers. In relation to safety, this House should place on record that the safety record of Bus Éireann has been exemplary and is worthy of commendation.
An unusual aspect of the school transport system is that it is an operation which joins the private and public sectors. In effect, the majority of buses are provided by the private sector although Bus Éireann carries the majority of children; it carries 97,000 children and the balance are carried by private contractors. More importantly, to ensure these private buses comply with Bus Éireann's safety standards they must pass inspection. We all know the standards CIE and Bus Éireann set, not just for the country buses or the school buses but also in Bus Átha Cliath, or Dublin Bus as it is known. It is a very important provision that it monitors the skills and standards of the drivers, their replacements and the buses.
Another thing it does is monitor the fact that taxes are paid. This is essentially an operation for Revenue but it is done by CIE. One cannot get a contract from CIE or Bus Éireann to transport children in a minibus unless one's taxes have been paid. There would be a huge potential loss to the State if that supervisory level was gone. Therefore there is enormous benefit in having this private and public sector involvement in the transportation of children to school.
In relation to the amendment, that is a matter for the Minister. As I said, I am glad I got a copy of this report. I do not want to cast any aspersions, but I do not know why two reports were commissioned. This is the experts' report. I read it and any objective person would conclude that Bus Éireann is running a first class operation. It is operating economically and I do not envisage any change in that situation.
However, that is not to say there are not other areas which should be examined — admittedly these matters will be the responsibility of other Departments — and they are Health and Social Welfare. We use ambulances which cost about £90,000 to fit out with heart machines, etc., to transport people to get their toenails cut and for X-rays.
Surely not in the heart ambulances.
I am not talking about the walking wounded. I am talking about people going in for a check-up who are transferred from St. Finbar's Hospital in Cork to another hospital, possibly the Regional Hospital, for an X-ray.
But not in the heart ambulance.
Ambulances, as Senator Henry knows, have very fancy equipment and it is getting fancier by the minute——
Some are fancier than others.
——and it should not be used to transport a person from one hospital to another for an X-ray.
We have a cardiac unit which could be used as a school bus because it it not used for anything else; it is sitting idle.
Senator Cotter is particularly unfortunate because he has all sorts of disabilities, he does not have the report. I am glad but I got it. I urge the Minister to publish the report and give the first copy to Senator Cotter.
I will not take it until it is official.
I am glad to be here to shed some light on this discussion on the school transport system and the question of a review.
I have no doubt that, when the House has heard what I have to say, it will agree that school transport is an area which has been the subject of much review over many years.
If this ongoing review has not resulted previously in radically new approaches to the conduct of the scheme, it is because the major undertaking to provide daily transport for thousands of pupils countrywide has been running very satisfactorily over the years. It is also because ongoing review has underlined the fact that we are dealing with a complex system where any new departure must be thought out carefully if it is to be introduced successfully. Ill advised radical change in this area could end up with pupils receiving a much less satisfactory service than at present.
The major departure in school transport was, of course, the establishment of a nationwide school transport system in 1967, administered by CIE as the Department's agent, following the introduction of Donogh O'Malley's free post-primary education scheme. Before that, a limited system of grants to individual primary schools had been in operation for many years. While the 1967 nationwide scheme rapidly developed vastly beyond the limited scope of the earlier primary schools' grant arrangements, these arrangements did point to certain practical principles which were incorporated into the major scheme.
The earlier primary school arrangements were based on helping pupils who had excessive distances to travel to school. Excessive distance was defined by reference to the School Attendance Act, 1926, which requires children to attend school who live within two miles if they are under ten years of age or within three miles if they are over that age. It is, therefore, a basic condition of the school transport scheme that it applies to eligible pupils only, namely, those defined as living beyond the School Attendance Act distances from school. It has, down the years, become necessary to adhere rigidly to these definitions. Any departure, by way of reduction of these requirements, would add massively to the cost of school transport.
A second feature of the earlier primary school arrangements was that grants for a transport service required a minimum of ten eligible pupils. The minimum of ten pupils has been retained for national schools but was reduced to seven for post-primary pupils who would come from a wider catchment area with longer distances to travel. In line with this, a lower number than ten is acceptable for national schools where specified numbers of pupils live more than certain distances from schools. Once again, any reduction in these requirements would cost considerable sums of money. Where, however, pupils live excessive distances from school but not in numbers warranting the establishment of a school transport service, individual grants may be allowed to enable parents make private arrangements for transport.
With the establishment of the nationwide school transport scheme in 1967, provision of school transport for post-primary schools was related to catchment areas. This was, in the first instance, to allow for the orderly development of viable post-primary schools providing as wide a range of subject options as possible. In addition, however, it would also be prohibitively expensive if transport were to be grant aided for pupils coming from outside a catchment area when there was already a transport service for those pupils within their own area.
Similarly, it was determined that eligibility for primary school transport was related to the pupil's nearest school. This is also an essential condition. To have transport provided for pupils to attend schools other than their nearest school would result in an enormously expensive network of transport services crossing over and duplicating one another throughout the country.
Within these arrangements, the most that it has been possible to do by way of concession to certain ineligible pupils and to certain pupils wanting to attend schools other than their nearest is to allow travel, on payment of a fare, when there are spare seats on the bus and no additional cost to the State is entailed.
I have set out these basic conditions of the school transport scheme to show the structures within which it is operated by Bus Éireann for my Department. These conditions are kept under review by the Department but there is no way in which they can be changed significantly without incurring huge costs.
At this point, I would like to give some broad facts and figures about the school transport scheme. I hope it has been worth Senator Lee's while to come to the House because I learned a lot when preparing my reply to the motion proposed by my Government colleagues.
The total number of pupils carried daily is 165,000. Of these, 66,000 are primary school pupils, 90,000 are post-primary pupils and 9,000 are pupils with disabilities for whom special arrangements are made. Eleven thousand of the primary and 1,000 of the post-primary pupils are concessionary in the meaning I described a few moments ago, that is, they pay their fare. The scheme uses 2,400 buses. Of these, 800 are operated by Bus Éireann and 1,600, the majority of them mini-buses, belong to private operators on contract to Bus Éireann. There are 6,000 routes.
In 1993, the scheme is estimated to cost £39.354 million. Some £4.2 million of this is expected to come from fares, leaving a demand of £35.154 million to be met by the Exchequer. Departmental grants to individual parents, etc., are estimated at £0.684 million and estimated total payments to Bus Éireann are £34.47 million. Payment to Bus Éireann will include operating costs of the 60 per cent of the service directly run by Bus Éireann, payments by Bus Éireann to private operators contracted to Bus Éireann who run 40 per cent of the service, cost for free transport for eligible pupils on scheduled services and administrative costs of the management of the scheme by Bus Éireann. Operation of the school transport scheme comprises approximately 45 per cent of Bus Éireann's total activity.
I would now like to move on to the review proper. The school transport scheme was reviewed by a firm of consultants in 1978. They did not favour general devolution of the scheme at that time and thought that an annual charge per pupil should be introduced. A detailed internal review was also carried out jointly by my Department, the Department of Finance and the then Department of the Public Service in 1985. This review suggested ways of reducing costs but, as these would have entailed either reductions in the standards of service or steep increases in charges, they were not proceeded with.
Later, the questions of cost effectiveness and possible alternative methods of administering the scheme were examined in depth by a second consultancy study in 1990. This study concluded that the scheme was operated by Bus Éireann in "a competent, cost-effective and secure manner". Certain alternatives were not seen as effective. Thus, giving vouchers to parents in lieu of running a transport scheme would not give the same service for the same average cost per pupil. This is because the extensive use of large buses under the present scheme achieves economies of scale. Grant aiding individual schools or even groups of schools would not achieve the economies at present available through the networking of services which the large scale administration of the present scheme allows.
More recently, a further consultancy study has looked at the practicalities of devolving administration of the scheme to a local agency, such as the vocational education committee. In accepting Senator Cotter's amendment, I will undertake to have both studies published and so ensure that an informed debate can take place on all aspects of the transport scheme and this promise is given in light of the Government's commitment to an open and transparent administration and I am sure I can get Senator Cotter a copy of the report.
Senator Cotter should not push his luck.
The Minister, without interruption.
In general, these reviews have focused on the quality of service and have also referred to the school bus fleet and to costs and administrative arrangements. There has been comparatively little complaint about the quality of service as such. Maintenance of buses is the responsibility of Bus Éireann and I am satisfied that they do an excellent job in a competent way.
There have been complaints from time to time about what is known as double-tripping, where the same vehicle successively brings two groups of children to school and home again. Again, there is no way this can be avoided without adding considerably to costs and my Department's requirements ensure that those who start on the first run in the morning are those who return home on the first run in the afternoon.
In regard to the school bus fleet, this is an ageing fleet and there was concern some years ago that the capital cost of replacement would be large. However, beginning in 1988, Bus Éireann succeeded in getting a number of good quality secondhand buses as a result of market developments in Britain and they have, since then, proceeded with a programme of steady replacement of existing buses. Private operators, of course, use their own vehicles on the services contracted out to them.
Costs and administrative arrangements, the focus of the reviews of school transport, are linked. The 1990 review pointed to the high degree of networking which has been possible from the unified Bus Éireann management and the high level of optimum usage of large buses which this has allowed. This has been a major factor in keeping down their unit costs. Comparison with the UK market confirms the competitiveness of Bus Éireann operations.
Bus Eireann administration has provided a comprehensive and reliable framework for the management of a complex school transport system over a quarter of a century. This is not a benefit to be lightly dismissed. I would like to pay tribute to the immense work performed by Bus Éireann through the years, to the great expertise they have built up in the area of school transport and to the formidable organising capacity they have displayed in organising 6,000 bus routes.
Nevertheless, so major an undertaking as the nationwide school transport system and possible alternative methods of delivery must be kept under periodic review. In this regard, I have already mentioned the objections to devolving school transport to schools locally or to small scale private management. A more recent review has been looking at the possibility of local agency participation. As things stand at present, this would mean participation in school transport management by Vocational Education Committees.
Having studied the matter, I believe it would be premature to endeavour to introduce any new arrangements under present structures. It is my view, therefore, that consideration of the future of the school transport scheme should be set in the context of the intermediate structures envisaged in the Programme for a Partnership Government and the decisions in the White Paper on Education on these structures.
I am conscious of the competent, cost efficient and secure service provided by Bus Éireann, as established by the consultants' reports. I, therefore, plan to arrange for Bus Éireann to meet with my officials to plan how their operations of the school bus service may be integrated with the local education structures. Bus Éireann should not be left in the dark as regards the overall plans in this area. Detailed arrangements will await further clarification of the form of the local structures in the White Paper on Education. However, I plan to initiate preliminary discussions with Bus Éireann on this topic before the publication of the White Paper.
In conclusion, I trust I have shown this House that the school transport scheme, which is a complex scheme upon which many thousands of pupils rely daily, has been and is the subject of ongoing review in great depth in my Department. Should changes be introduced in the future, the first priority must be to ensure that pupils will continue to receive the high levels of service to which they have been accustomed in the past.
May I say to those Senators who rightly took the opportunity in this House, where they had my undivided attention, to raise local matters close to their hearts that they will be dealt with by my Department. Finally, as someone who was, I confess, reared across the road from the school I attended, the notion of being driven there was a luxury beyond my comprehension but since taking office, I have left Dublin on early and dark mornings and I hope, before my term of office is completed, that where lights are switched on in houses early in the morning to facilitate the operation of the school transport system, they will be switched on a little later for the children I have seen standing at the sides of our roads.
I wish to share my time with Senator Calnan, who otherwise may not have the opportunity to contribute.
Acting Chairman
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The motion does not attempt to make an argument for private or public transport and that should be put on the record because that is the perception that has come across in the debate. Not only is it not part of the motion but is is also not its intent.
I am delighted the Minister has decided to publish the reports. I was not lucky enough to get one of these famous reports and I consider myself adept at getting documents. One way or the other I will get a copy. I am delighted the Minister has decided to publish the reports. It is appropriate that such documents are published so that people may debate the issues and, in particular, where professional people have been employed to evaluate and analyse a public service. I compliment the Minister for publishing these documents. It is in the best interest of debate, discussion and, as Senator McGowan said, review — I qualify that statement further by saying ongoing review.
Senator Kelly referred to competition and I support her remarks in this regard. It would be wrong to move into a situation where only some schools could provide a bus service because schools in deprived areas, which we have tried to support over the years, could not afford such a service. We have a responsibility to schools in marginal and deprived areas and to parents of pupils who are not in a position to provide a private bus service.
My local office in Athlone is the most accommodating public service office I have dealt with. We have restructured, not at political but at community level, the entire bus service for the pupils in our parish with the co-operation of that office. They have provided an excellent service and I am delighted. The report shows it is cost effective. It is not easy to provide such a service.
I was unable to avail of the free bus service when at school. I left school in 1966 before the introduction of this service in 1967. I remember one hackney car brought all the boys from my village, one third of those attending school, to Summerhill College, County Sligo. Today this service is provided by Bus Éireann and it is a good service. I do not want to go down a road which may threaten that service without proper review and analysis. There is no reason to discontinue this service. Open debate and the publication of documents is the best way to deal with this matter.
I do not know how catchment areas were decided, but I know they were done with a geographic intent. It would appear a circle was drawn around an area and that was the catchment area for a particular school. However, some of those decisions do not stand up to scrutiny. A number of years ago I highlighted an anomaly in my area to the Department of Education. In order for pupils to attend the designated school, it would have been necessary for them to swim across the River Shannon. There was no bridge over which they could cross, the nearest bridge was ten miles away at Shannonbridge. Those who drew the map believed there was a crossing between Athlone and Shannonbridge. There may have been a bridge when Brian Boru crossed the river, but there was no bridge in my time. We must review catchment areas where anomalies exist.
A policy with which I disagreed, and which has thankfully eased, was the amalgamation of one and two teacher schools. Where amalgamations took place assurances were given to parents that bus services would be provided. However, many of these commitments have not been honoured by the Department and unless one is able to produce letters of assurance received at that time, word of mouth will not be accepted. This happened in Tulsk, County Roscommon, only this week. We must honour commitments given to local communities and not try to hide behind bureaucracy. I am not criticising the Minister; this situation has prevailed for some time. Our credibility is at stake.
Acting Chairman
The Senator is availing of Senator Calnan's time.
I do not want to exclude Senator Calnan. I welcome this debate. I appreciate that review must take place at all times and tonight's debate will be of benefit in this regard. The publication of the report and the subsequent debate may help to improve the bus service further, although it is doing well at present. I am glad the Minister has accepted Senator Cotter's amendment. It is not our intention to exclude good and valuable advice whether it relates to education or the environment.
I welcome the Minister to the House. I have first hand experience of dealing with school transport. Since 1975 I have been in charge of school transport in a post-primary school of 500 pupils. I encounter the day to day and operational difficulties which arise from the point of view of the school, the pupils, Bus Éireann and the bus driver.
Bus drivers deserve respect and credit because they are responsible for both the vehicle and discipline on the bus, and they do an excellent job maintaining discipline. Part-time bus driving jobs are important in rural areas where there is little employment.
We must ensure that there are sufficient number of buses on each route. Overcrowding on buses may lead to bullying and smoking which is a health hazard and a fire risk. We should be conscious of the materials used in buses. Good durable materials should be used. I am not talking about comfort on buses because soft seats will be torn, but good durable seats are important. During the winter months drivers must manoeuvre buses on icy, narrow roads in rural areas and they deserve credit for their skills.
It is very difficult to develop a comprehensive transport scheme for rural areas where houses may be a quarter of a mile or a half a mile apart. We must take two matters into account when we talk about the school transport service. First, transport to education is the primary function and pupils must be on time for school. Unless there is a breakdown or the weather is bad, the bus drivers serving the school with which I was dealing get the pupils in on time. They provide a great service. The second matter I wish to discuss is the health of the pupils. Pupils leave home early in the morning and often have to travel two or three miles to the pick up point. If the weather is bad, they get wet and come to school wearing wet clothes, and there are no facilities for drying their clothes when they reach the school. The teachers do their best but schools do not have the facilities to provide that type of service.
The bus also picks pupils up very early in the morning. Some children leave home at 7.30 a.m., they are in school at 8.15 a.m. and then the bus picks up a second group. The same thing happens in the evening. Some pupils go home earlier than others who have to wait at the school for three-quarters of an hour. This leads to difficulties with insurance and supervision must be provided for these pupils. Many matters must be considered, particularly in regard to the bus coming early in the morning. It would be preferable to have extra buses than running this dual service. Something will have to be done about it because there is a health hazard, an insurance hazard and there can be an education hazard as well.
The transport scheme is there for the school, the pupils and education. Transport itself is secondary but it is very important. I ask the Minister to take note in the reports and in the proposed review that extra curricular activities often suffer where a transport scheme is provided. Whether it is football, rugby or tennis, pupils using the transport scheme are often unable to participate and we must do something to accommodate them.
We should be flexible about the rules, I remember the case where an inspector had to examine the distance from a house to a school and he found it to be 2.93 miles. In a case like that it would be better to let the pupil use the transport than to bring a senior official out to measure the distance. I look for flexibility in these rules especially in a rural area where there are so many complicated problems. It would also be of great advantage to give individual grants where people live that extra distance from the pick up points.
I thank the Minister and I am glad the good sense of the House prevailed. The intention of the motion was to focus on the school transport system, and I welcome the fact that we will not have to have a vote on the issue. It is obvious that people thought this was an anti-CIE motion. It was unhelpful for anybody to interpret this as an anti-CIE motion. I wish to emphasise that this was not the intention of the motion.
I believe in competition. A couple of years ago a return fare from Donegal to Dublin cost £18; today it costs £10. Nothing could more eloquently prove the value of competition than that. The Members of this House, all reasonable thinking people, are interested in the success of the school system and in getting good value for money, but some places in rural Ireland have difficulties with the system. I welcome the Minister's statement that she will travel around to these places and hopefully she will visit some of the areas where there are difficulties. She also said she will respond positively to complaints or to areas where there are difficulties and a case has been made to her. I welcome that, because it will help remove the problems.
I will read one paragraph of a reply from the co-ordinator of transport in County Donegal. There is a transport co-ordinator in every county, there is a CIÉ officer in charge of school transport, there is the private operator and the Minister. Many different people have responsibility for this area and sometimes it is very difficult to get an effective response to even the most proven case. Most of us should be concerned and I am not pleased that this matter was taken lightly here — some Senators showed a lack of sincerity but I will not dwell on that. In the letter I wrote to the transport co-ordinator, Mr Séan Ó Longan, of County Donegal vocational education committee on 8 January 1992, I stated "You did not mention the fact that children have to catch a bus at 7.30 a.m. to be at school in Raphoe at 9.30 a.m. which is only a distance of 11 miles." A child could nearly walk it——
Acting Chairman
With due respect, Senator, you are mentioning the names of people who are not here to defend themselves.
These are all public——
Acting Chairman
They are not here to defend themselves.
I am not mentioning anybody I am not entitled to mention. I may mention the Minister, and anybody who is a public servant. I have not mentioned anybody who is not a public servant, and a public servant is responsible for spending public money. I can call him the officer in charge or a transport co-ordinator if that satisfies the record.
The letter continued that the same children do not get home until 5 o'clock. Surely this is the most unfair and inefficent transport system in the country. This is only one case. I have ten such cases in County Donegal, and I am sure County Donegal is not unique. Rural Ireland has many such cases.
The Minister is satisfied with the performance of CIÉ and the report which Minister Brennan got about good value for money, but this situation is perfect in theory only. It is like the architect who drew the plans to build a house without inspecting the site and did not realise that there was a boulder 10 foot high on the site. I hope the Minister will visit some of the problem areas and if she does, I have no doubt she will take seriously the complaints that will be made. We are in real difficulty if CIÉ as the responsible transport operator on the ground, recognises there is a small problem that could be solved by a reasonable response from the Minister and her Department. I ask the Minister before she makes a decision in these cases to send somebody to satisfy her and her Department that the complaint has been fully investigated.
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
I thank the Minister for her openness this evening in deciding to accept my amendment. Generally Ministers come here and they do not do that. I am very happy it was done this evening. With regard to the report, the Minister should ascertain how the report became available throughout the country when it was unpublished. This is not a frivolous matter, it is a serious one and deserves the Minister's attention because this was a confidential report. The Minister for Education at the time said he could not publish the report and he did not publish it.
Acting Chairman
I am sorry to interrupt you, Senator, but the motion has been agreed. You must conclude.