The question of the provision of a school transport service for girls from the Gort catchment area to Seamount secondary school, Kinvara, has been examined in my Department on a number of occasions. The key issue in this case is that the Deputy's proposal would be a clear infringement of the catchment boundary unless both schools agree to a single catchment area. This was explained by my predecessor for almost three years and by myself for the last two years.
As the Deputy is aware, in 1998 a small number of girls from the Kinvara catchment area, who would not ordinarily qualify for transport to another catchment area, were allowed board the bus at the same point as their brothers who had a full transport entitlement to the Gort school, provided no extra State cost was involved. This was done in the unusual circumstances where members of the same household were appropriate to separate catchment areas on the basis of their gender.